EXCLUSIVE: The Real Mission Of Boko Haram In Nigeria By Al-Mustapha

Retired Major Hamza Al-Mustapha is the former Chief Security Officer to the Late Head of State, General Sani Abacha. After the death of his boss, he was deployed out of the Villa to Enugu and was later invited by the Military High Command in Abuja for questioning. That was the beginning of his ordeal and long detention. He was accused among other allegations to have murdered powerful Nigerians especially wife of the Late MKO Abiola, Kudirat Abiola

In this exclusive interview with Mohammed Askirama, SECURITY MONITOR’s Northern Bureau Chief, the Nguru born military intelligence officer recently spoke exclusively to Mohammed Askirama, our Northern Bureau Chief where he talked about Abacha government, the Boko Haram crisis, his presidential ambition, his proposed book on Abacha and several other issues.

Some people are finding it difficult to situate your state of origin. Are you from Yobe State or Kano State?

I was born in Nguru, Yobe State, went to Primary School and Secondary Schools there and later joined the Military but we are actually Koki Quarters, Kano Metropolis. All my grand and great grand fathers are from Koki Quarters. So, to answer you correctly, I am from Kano State, but born in Yobe State.

When the Supreme Court set you free from 15 years detention during the Jonathan administration, not a few people believe that the former President released you so that you can work for his second term?

It was a coincident of event that the Supreme Court set me free during Jonathan’s government. Many people told me that had it been the then president wanted me to remain in detention, he would have one way or the other tampered with my case. When I was released, I embarked on massive consultation of opinion leaders across the country including militants in the Niger Delta and elders like Edwin Clerk. In the north, I met with some leaders of the Northern Elder’s Forum like Ango Abdullahi, several youth leaders in the North on the need for Nigeria to remain one and united,

I even set up a foundation called Hamza Al-Mustapha Peace and Unity Foundation. When I was still in service, I set up a foundation in Nguru and raised a lot of money to assist the less privilege in the area in terms of scholarship and poverty alleviation.

The truth of the matter is that it was the Supreme Court that released me, not Jonathan.

Some people view your role as CSO to late Abacha as one of the reasons they detained you after Abacha died because you became too powerful then and was said to have messed up several powerful retired and serving Generals.

As a military officer, one can only leave service when you died, when you are incapacitated, when you are dismissed or when you are involved in a coup. None of the above happened to me.

My duty as the CSO to the then Head of State was to protect his family, to protect the seat of power, which means the government and I take directive straight from the Commander-in-Chief.

Even though there are other senior military officers by virtue of their positions, we work hand in hand, but under Abacha, we run a courageous, security conscious and serious government that people believe what we were doing was dictatorship.

At a point, I can tell you I was in charge of the security of other African Heads of State like Gambia, Serra Leone, Liberia and what have you. But today, I can tell you with all sense of honesty that the way the present government is running its affairs, Nigeria need serious prayers because I did not see any sign that kidnappings and Boko Haram activities will stop in the nearest future.

Today, Boko Haram seems to be coming back in full force, we are also witnessing security challenges in Sokoto, Zamfara, Kaduna, Taraba and Benue States. What is your advice?

I can tell you that some of our leaders don’t even know the dynamics of Boko Haram or the issue of kidnappings ravaging most parts of the north. To set the record straight, Boko Haram started as far back as 1999 by some unpatriotic Nigerians in collaboration with some foreign countries. All they want is to destroy the north and its vast resources.

Secondly, they are also out to destroy Islam and all they do is to recruit some jobless people from our neighbouring countries because of poverty; equip them, give them all the necessary security arrangements, and then they are ready to attack Nigeria to ensure that the country did not move forward.

Why is it that there are few kidnappings in South East or South West? We only have Niger Delta Militants in the South-South. We have armed personnel patrolling our boarders, so who is helping this militants to cross into Nigeria with heavy equipment?

Even when I was in prison, I was working hard to assist this country. So, if people said Abacha’s approach to governance is called dictatorship, then Nigerian are in for a long insecurity as our leaders don’t even know how and when to end the crisis. In any war, you need dialogue, negotiation and third party intervention to come to a peaceful resolution not to go to Sambisa chase Boko Haram insurgents away and return to base.

What happened to your presidential ambition?

I formed the Green Party of Nigeria (GPN) to contest for the presidency in 2019, but later I travelled out for medical check-up because when I was in detention, I went through several torture and in my body I have several hard objects inflicted in my body and I had to travel out to undergo operation to remove them.

In my absence, some people that are afraid of Hamza Al-mustapha sent their stooges to take over Green Party of Nigeria and when I returned and discovered that, I decided to join People’s Party of Nigeria (PPN) because their manifestoes are exactly what I have in mind for this country and as you can see the elections are fast approaching so my presidential ambition now is a topic for another day.

Recently, Swiss Government released 322 Million Dollars, part of what they call Abacha Loot to be shared to poor Nigerians. What is your take on that?

Nigeria is a country that has a very powerful media organizations and media managers that can be given money to destroy whoever they wish to destroy whether it will lead to the total destruction of the country or not.

I can swear anytime and anywhere that there is nothing like ‘Abacha loot,’ Take it from me and people will also read from series of books am going to publish. There was nothing like Abacha loot. What happened was that when some Nigerian elites including a former military head of state discovered that they could not control Abacha, they started mobilizing foreign powers to put sanction on Nigeria.

Because of this, the Late Abacha and members of the Supreme Military Council including financial experts met and decided to create dedicated accounts outside the country through Central Bank in the name of a Nigerian government. The implication of this was that any country that tried to test our will or interfere in the affairs of our country, we will approach them and ask them if they are owing us, then we use money in the dedicated account to pay them off so that they will mind their business.

Abacha did not steal even a Kobo from the country’s treasury but the media succeeded in painting him like a thief. By the way, we have been hearing about the recovery of billions of Naira as Abacha Loot, where is the money? The retired former Head of State who was campaigning for sanction against Abacha’s government then left to me, should have been arrested and shot because we run what is called serious and no nonsense government with complete sense of discipline as our watch word.

Today, Nigeria’s is derailing so fast that it will be difficult to rescue it from total collapse if we don’t get serious leaders.

When you were released from detention, there was this allegation that some powerful Nigerians contracted you to import foreign snipers to kill about 1,000 prominent Nigerians including Muslims, what actually was the issue all about?

Let me give you a piece of the story. Some powerful individuals in the country that were afraid of seeing me free in the society contracted a Kaduna based Islamic Scholar Sheikh Sunusi Khaliel and for 9 months, he was delivering sermons every Friday in his mosque on this particular issue. In fact, it became so serious that I notice that ordinary Nigerians that love me are beginning to ask questions. So what I did was to go back to how the matter started. I have people that videotaped everything for me including documents.

When I put everything together, then I took him to Sharia Court for both of us to swear by the Holy Qur’an that his allegations against me were true, and when it was almost set that he will be disgraced, some respected elders called the two of us and some people to settle out of Court.

What is your assessment of the state of our nation today?

Nigeria today I can tell you is completely sick and is not being governed by a competent hand that will restore our dignity and our position in Africa.

Nigerians are dying of hunger and you said you are distributing 10 or 5 thousand poverty alleviation stipends to the poor. You claim, you recovered billions of Naira from corrupt Nigerians and put it in the Central Bank. So how can that transform to putting food on the table of the poor.

If I become president, I will use this loot recovered from corrupt Nigerians and I will be training 200,000 Nigerians on quarterly basis across the country, and after training, give them 5 million naira each so that they can be self-employed.