Al Mustapha, the former Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the late Head of State, General Sani Abacha, is trending, as the Gen C generation will put it. If my reading of him is correct, this gentleman seems motivated by a feeling that he is a grossly misunderstood person. He seems to be saying that he is a committed patriot who is unfortunately painted as a cruel, cunning, deceptive and terribly ambitious man who wants to punch above his weight.
Since he emerged from being a castaway following several allegations of crimes committed by him and others during his participation in a regime that was murderous and larcenous, the man has been trying to project himself as a first rate patriot who deeply loves his country and wants everything good for the peace and security of his nation.
His effort to contest for the presidency of the federation as proof of his ability and of his deep love for his country has been dismissed by some as over whining, a view some of us share. Even Al Mustapha himself knows that the question of the presidency of a nation is not only a question of knowledge and competence alone. Other considerations, including how a person is perceived by many of those he seeks to lead, come into much calculation. He is such a badly painted man that a battalion of PR men cannot white wash him successfully. I, therefore, honestly think that should I become president tomorrow, the best I can acknowledge or reward his service and concern for Nigeria is that he will be my number candidate for the Office of the National Security Adviser. And that is if he purges himself of his Arewacentric disposition.
But let us leave this line that is beginning to sound like a rehabilitative or restorative campaign for a man who was once dreaded and detested by many citizens and wished dead for his perceived role in the murderous Abacha regime.
As I started by saying, Al Mustapha has been trending on the Internet. His eyes and ears seem focused on seeing the wrong things but foreigners and their internal collaborators are doing to Nigeria. He is saying that this nation’s territorial integrity is being assaulted by all manner of persons who want to destroy the destiny of this nation and who want to rob us of the many beautiful minerals God has given to us for our well being and prosperity. From Al Mustapha, some of us have come to learn of a precious mineral called californium. (This mineral is named after the State of California in the USA and how that came about, no one seems to know). Those who know say Californium is vital in the manufacture of nuclear weapons.
This substance we have come to know is found in the Borno axis of our country and is the reason many foreigners, especially the Americans; gravitate towards there in the name of humanitarian work and socio-economic development. The controversial USA funded USAID was the front for this violation of Nigeria’s sovereignty in the harvest of that mineral.
Al Mustapha’s campaign of disclosure of our security breaches have opened our eyes to how Nigeria is being subverted by all manner of people without the seeming knowledge or actions of those in authority in our country.
For long now it has become an open secret that the security challenge in Zamfara is not at all a case of Boko Haram or Lakurawa terrorism and banditry as we have been wrongly informed but a case of illegal mining of the many precious minerals found in the ground of Zamfara as is very much the case in Congo D.R. We have heard how helicopters fly into parts of that state and fly out with billions worth of dollars minerals illegally mined in that state and environs. But because human beings by nature love to hear stories about criminal exploits, we ordinary Nigerians have been kept fascinated by media stories about banditry and terrorism warlords and their followers.
We have been inundated with stories of the exploits and rebellion against the Federal might by people like Dogo Gide, Bello Turji and their criminal gangs. Before Turji, Kachala Dan Chaki and Umar Taraba came on the scene there was theoriginal war lord Buharin Daji (the Buhari of the Forest). But the stories hid the naked truth. Nigeria was being pillaged, raped and robbed by a gang led by retired generals, ruthless businessman, foreigners like the Chinese and many others of their cohorts.
All of these lead one to wonder that If our leaders were not administered with a serum which blinds them to the wounds being inflicted on a country whose affairs they are supposed to superintend, it should have led to tearful resignations by any sitting president, defense minister, national security adviser and all those whose remit is to protect the country against foreigners and nationals alike who have turned our joy into sadness. The saddest part of this sorry story is about the foreigners who invade our country at will to strip us of the resources God has deemed it fit to bestow upon our nation. But no one resigns. No one takes a firm decisive action to put an end to the economic banditry against our nation.
I am sincerely looking forward to the day when one morning, someone in a position of high authority will call a press conference or issue a letter of resignation that certain revelations about the country or his domain of eminence is an incriminating indictment against his calamitous failure to his constituency. He will not give excuses at all that it is somebody else’s fault and not his own. May that day come speedily in Jesus Mighty Name.
