Nuhu Ribadu’s Response to Al-Mustapha’s Claim

Ribadu, former EFCC boss dismisses Al-Mustapha’s claim as a joke

Former anti-graft czar, Nuhu Ribadu, has denied that he tried to kill Hamza Al-Mustapha, the former Chief Security Officer of late Gen Sani Abacha in 1998.

“Is this a joke? My attention has been drawn to comments made in court today by the Chief Security Officer to the late General Sani Abacha, Hamza Al Mustapha, claiming that as ‘escort officer’ I was recruited to assassinate him back in 1998,” said Ribadu in a statement.

“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.

For the records, however, 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 them all [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 rails, and by shying away from the distraction of public performance.” culled from Daily Times