Younger brother to the Chief Security Officer (CSO) to late Head of State, General Sani Abacha, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha says his life has been in constant survellance and danger because of his famous brother.
His house was invaded by operatives of the Joint Task Force (JTF) on Friday, March 29, 2014 and he described the experience as horrible.
He said the JTF invaded his house due to inaccurate information from one of their informant and demands such a person should be exposed.
The Scoop reports
Hadi Al-mustapha, the younger brother to the chief security officer (CSO) to late Head of State, General Sani Abacha, had his home in Kano invaded by operatives of the Joint Task Force (JTF) two Fridays ago, a situation which has given him cause for concern.
He spoke to the Weekly Trust newspaper narrating the experience. He said he was not even in the state when the JTF men “invaded his house.”
“They came in hundreds in Armoured Personnel Carriers (APC) and Hilux vehicles. They took over my house for over an hour, ransacking all the corners of the house looking for what we don’t know. Nobody knows why they came and what they were looking for. After the operation people overheard them speaking with somebody on phone that ‘it is like the information given to us was inaccurate, they gave us wrong information’. It was after the conversation that they asked the people who were lying down to stand up, they apologised and left.
“It was a very nasty experience, for over 100 soldiers to enter a house and ask all the occupants to lie down flat including a two-year-old boy, you can imagine how the trauma would be. It is really sad, disturbing and unfortunate that my family members were humiliated. The annoying aspect of the raid was that my two-year-old son was not spared from the humiliation. Up till now, if anybody comes to our house, he would be running to hide,” he said.
He said that the JTF men were misled by their informant who should be exposed.
“Whether it is politically motivated or not I don’t know, but what I want people to understand is that I’m not a soldier, I’m not a politician and I’m not a criminal. And I don’t have any criminal record, because I’m a law-abiding citizen, unfortunately this is not the first time I have been subjected to these kinds of trauma. I don’t deserve it.”
Hadi Almustapha said incidents like that were not unusual since 1998. He narrated how in 1998, some months after General Sani Abacha died, he was arrested in the same house, handcuffed and whisked away to the headquarters of the SSS in Abuja. He said the SSS allegedly received information that he was planning to break out Hamza Al-Mustapha from prison but released him after they found that the information was false.
Narrating further, he said:
After that, there was an assassination attempt on my life, still in the same house. Even though I survived it, two of my security guards were not that lucky as they were killed. After sometime, some people came to my house again and humiliated us and left. That was why we decided to travel to Saudi Arabia for lesser Hajj to seek divine intervention.
Unfortunately, the very day we came back from the lesser Hajj around 1.am, this very house was engulfed in fire in mysterious circumstances. Nobody thought we would survive it, because of the intensity of the inferno. In fact, one of my neighbours died as a result of shock. Look at all the trauma they put me into just because I’m Hamza’s brother.
Part of the reason for the recent search of his home by JTF was the belief that the house belongs to his elder brother. However Hadi denied that. “This is not Hamza’s house, it is mine. Hamza has nothing to do with this house and this is why I’m worried that all these calamities are befalling me just because I’m his brother. I’m a human being and it is natural that you have somebody as your elder or a younger brother. If I’m to write a book on what I have been experiencing, you will be shocked.”
He then went on to share some of his “unfortunate” experiences.
“One of the things that I will never forget is the invasion of our family house in 1999. Policemen came and humiliated our father simply because one of his sons is Hamza Al-Mustapha. He was asked to write a statement on things that he knew nothing about. They wrote the statement themselves and forced him to sign it. It was as a result of the agony of the invasion that he developed high blood pressure and after some time he died,” he said.
He denied that there was any business between him and Hamza and said that “Hamza did not get me any appointment or contract in government at any capacity when he was CSO. He is just a brother to me, and this is not by my making or his, it is by destiny. He is nothing more than a brother to me. Go and ask our family or people who know me right from childhood, I have been enterprising. In fact, since when I was seven years old, I have been doing business. I don’t believe in relying on somebody or becoming liability, even Hamza will testify to this. As I’m talking to you now, he is based in Abuja while I’m here in Kano. He is living his life and I’m living mine too.
“On the second aspect of the question, there was nothing like that and that was why when he came out of prison I was extremely happy and I must tell you that the happiest day of life was the day he was released. Today, Hamza is out, he is alive and I am, too. I want you to go and ask him this question.
“I’m a business man. God has given me the energy to work and there are a lot of opportunities in the country. If an Indian or a Chinese can come to Nigeria with T-shirt and jeans and go back to their countries with millions, I don’t see reason why I cannot make it in my own country. God Almighty has blessed this country with abundant resources. For you to succeed in this country you need three things, one you must not be lazy, you have to be very truthful and honest in whatever you are doing and lastly you have to be dedicated and committed to whatever you are doing. With these, Almighty God will help you grow in any business. And to God be the glory, I possess all these.
He said when his brother was CSO, he was “not close to the Villa, because anytime I go he will tell me to leave and that was what gave me the courage to be on my own. This is why I have been able to achieve what I have made in life. It was because of this that I was able to keep our family together even when he was incarcerated. The lesson he taught me helped me a lot and I’m going to inculcate same in my children so that they can fend for themselves. If he had given me the opportunity to be close to the Villa I wouldn’t have achieved anything. I thank God for that.”
