Al-Mustapha is a joke, says Ribadu

The former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Nuhu Ribadu has refuted the claims of his involvement in a plan to assassinate Hamza Al-Mustapha, the former Chief Security Officer to the late Head of State, Sani Abacha.

Describing the claim as an invention “to help build a constituency of concern and sympathy for his case,” Mr Ribadu in a statement Thursday claimed that, “I want to strongly refute this claim as false, and perhaps as invented to help build a constituency of concern and sympathy for his case.

“I was never a party to any such plot, and will never be associated in a scheme to perpetrate extra-judicial murder,” he said.

Mr Mustahpha had during a cross examination at the High Court in Lagos during the hearing of the murder charge against him, tendered the statement as part of his defence in his trial over the murder of M.K.O Abiola’s wife, Kudirat, claiming that some people in government were unnecessarily after his life.

Mr Mustapha had claimed that Mr Ribadu, as the escort officer who brought him and others to Lagos, had orders to kill him, stating that, “this was however averted by the then commissioner of police in Lagos State, Mike Okiro, who went into an argument with Mr Ribadu that if there was such an order, there must be a letter from the president.” The suspect noted that Mr Okiro was transferred out of Lagos immediately after the arrival of his group in Lagos.

Mr Ribadu, however, stated that to set the record straight, “I was the lead state prosecutor (not escort officer) in all the cases of the 1998 trialists facing murder charges before they were handed over to the Lagos State government.

“I was also a passenger in the same Nigerian Air force aircraft that conveyed the man (including General Bamaiyi, Col. Bako and others) from Abuja to Lagos to begin trial.

“This would certainly not be a logical setting for assassination! I think at this point, Mr Al-Mustapha’s case is best served by keeping the substance of his murder case on the trials, and by shying away from the distraction of public performance,” Mr Ribadu said.