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Pressure increases from IBB groups to release Accused

The presidency has directed the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice to liaise with the Lagos State government to look at the legal implications of the long standing trial of Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, former chief security officer (CSO) to former Head of State, late General Sani Abacha, to ensure that justice is done to both victims and the accused.

A source in the presidency said that the directive was based on a report recently submitted to President Goodluck Jonathan by a team of senior lawyers advising the president to ensure that justice is done to the former CSO, who has been standing trial since 1999 over the alleged killing of Alhaja Kudirat Abiola and attempted murder of the publisher of The Guardian, Olorogun Alex Ibru.

The report claims that the foot-dragging over the trial of Mustapha amounted to justice denied. It said the only way the government could ensure fairness and justice in the murder case was to ensure that one party did not suffer injustice.

The report further advised that there is urgent need to advise the Lagos State government, the prosecutor to discontinue the case if it does not have sufficient evidence to prosecute the matter.

"Since the presidency cannot directly ask the Lagos State government to discontinue the case, it can only advise. And the minister of justice has been advised to liaise with the Lagos State government," the source added.

A coalition of ethnic nationalities in the country recently called for an unconditional release of Major Al-Mustapha.

Speaking at a joint news conference addressed by the founder of the Oodua People's Congress (OPC), Dr. Fredrick Fasehun; the leaders of Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF), Alhaji Shettima Yerima; the Niger-Delta Volunteers Force (NDVF), Alhaji Dokubo Asari; and the Igbo Youth Congress (IYC), Comrade Bright Ezeocha , the leaders said the prolonged detention of Al-Mustapha was an injustice.

They called on Jonathan to invoke the prerogative of mercy clause in the constitution to grant amnesty and liberty to him and those detained with him.

According to the coalition, the 12 years Mustapha has spent in detention, represent 18 years in the normal prison calendar, making him the longest serving solitary detainee in the nation's history. His useful years, they said, were being frittered away.

The leaders spoke at Fasehun's Century Hotel, Okota, Lagos, recently. Over 500 members of the ethnic militia groups were at the occasion.

Addressing reporters on behalf of the group, Fasehun condemned everything the successive governments had done in Al-Mustapha's case. He said the government's position contradicts the nation's position as a signatory to the United Nation, Commonwealth, African and West African Charters, Conventions and Resolutions on Human Rights, Torture, Detention and Imprisonment.

The injustice of Major Al-Mustapha's detention, Fasehun said, had become a source of disgrace to millions of Nigerians at home and abroad. He said the issue had become an international embarrassment and disgrace to Nigerians and the nation's judicial systems.

He added: "More embarrassing is the fact that all the witnesses that the state has pushed forward in the court of law had by and large debunked the allegations leveled against these gentlemen.

"Time has come to terminate this national disgrace and lunacy. We hereby appeal to President Goodluck Jonathan to wade into this matter in the name of all that is good.

My son must not die -Yar'Adua's mother *Tells Turai to release her son *To meet with OBJ, Gowon

FOLLOWING the refusal of the First Lady, Hajia Turai Yar'Adua, to allow top politicians, including the relatives of the ailing President Umaru Yar'Adua to see her husband, who was secretly brought into the country after spending three months in a Saudi Arabian hospital, the mother of the president, Hajia Dada

Unusual disrespect to lead her husband in the religion they both practice, not to mention President of a nation

Yar'Adua, has called on eminent Nigerians to prevail on Hajia Turai to release her son to her.

Similarly, the president's mother has vowed to hold her daughter in-law responsible if anything unwholesome happens to her son.

A source close to the family in Katsina disclosed that the president's mother has started making frantic efforts to meet with former President Olusegun Obasanjo and former military head of state, General Yakubu Gowon, as well as other eminent Nigerians, who were close to President Yar'Adua's late brother, General Sheu Musa Yar'Adua, to help appeal to the first lady to drop her recalcitrant attitude, and bring home the ailing Nigerian leader.

According to the source, Turai had locked the door of Aso Rock against the president's mother, thus preventing her from seeing her son. He added that the woman, who had become troubled since her son took ill, had sent emissaries to Ota Farm to meet Chief Obasanjo in order to make him see her plight and prevail on the first lady to change her mind.

The woman, according to the source, revealed that the health status of president Yar'Adua had always been a source of worry to her, noting that the president had been battling with health challenges, as he was afflicted with a certain skin disease at birth, adding that the president's illness, which has been given much media attention in recent times, could be cured locally.

She said Turai's hard stance on access to her husband had made things worse, as President Yar'Adua's health condition had suffered in the process.

The source said that President Yar'Adua's mother did not want her son disgraced from office, noting that it was better for him to die and be given full presidential honours, than being disgraced out of office.

It will be recalled that the president's mother, in the wake of the president's latest sickness, after he was flown to Saudi Arabia, had urged the first lady to leave her son alone and allow him to resign from office on the grounds of his ill health.