PERSONALITY: I studied law to free dad- Fatima, Al-Mustapha’s daughter

Fatima 

From YINKA FABOWALE, Ibadan

Shortly after he was slammed behind bars and moved to Kirikiri Prisons, in Lagos, the distraught wife of the dreaded former Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the late Head of State, General Sanni Abacha, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, visited him, bringing along with her the security chief’s children.

 In the party was seven-year old Fatima, who was a Grade II pupil at the American International School, Maitama, Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

However, the two parents kept the kids in the dark about the ordeal their father, charged with the murder of the late Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, wife of the presumed winner of the voided June 12, 1993 presidential elections, was facing.

In fact, Al-Mustapha played the happy go-lucky daddy, telling the children he was on a military course, to prepare them for the reality of his to be long absence at home.

However, shortly after returning to Abuja, the kids, especially Fatima, stumbled on the raw facts through newspaper reports and became crestfallen.

Now a law graduate, the 24-year old in an interview with Sunday Sun recalls: “My mum tried so hard to hide it from us. But then we saw it in the newspapers…saw pictures of him climbing the Black Maria and all that. I confronted her and she was forced to let out the truth. I was inconsolable”.

With a father faced with a likely death sentence, Fatima said she cried for days, more so with all sorts of embarrassment coming from school mates and their parents, who withdrew from associating with the stigmatized Al-Mustapha kids.

She said much as this pained her. She was more worried about how “Daddy could be bailed out of the predicament and returned home”.

In her child-like innocence she took to heart, words of one of her sympathetic teachers, who told her “only a lawyer can get him released”, and swore there and then to be a lawyer and rescue her father.

That resolve has been actualized as Fatima is among the successful law students in the Final Bar examination of the Nigerian Law School Abuja, which results were released on Wednesday, October 15, 2014. She will be called to the bar next month.

Although her father has been discharged and acquitted of the charge by the July 12, 2013 judgment of the Court of Appeal, Lagos, without her imput, for the lass, who holds LLB (2011) and LLM (2012) degrees from University of Nicofia, Cyprus and International School of Maritime Law, Malta, respectively, becoming a lawyer was a dream fulfilled.

“It was more of a passion to get daddy back. As a child, I just couldn’t get over seeing his pictures in Black Maria. I figured how to get him out. But the real encouragement actually came from one of my teachers who said only a lawyer can get him released. She explained that lawyers were people who go to court and argue cases before the judge and that based on the merit of the case, the judge can set him free. That was why I decided I would be a lawyer”.

Fatima says her passion to get justice for her father drove and saw her through the course: “You know when you have a passion for something; you don’t see any hindrances or difficulty.

Understandably, she is bitter about Al-Mustapha’s long years of incarceration, describing it as “gross injustice and a failure of the justice system”.

On his controversial and protracted trial, she says it is more political than criminal, stressing: “Everything is political and not based on the merit. And when you do that, you open the door for people’s rights to be abused.

“When you fail to obey the rule of law and start creating laws of your own within the existing laws, then you are setting us up for failure”.

For all that, however, Fatima says she would not join her father’s defence team to argue his case which is currently before the Supreme Court after Lagos State appealed the appellate court’s verdict. “You know I’m just budding. Besides, I trust his lawyers to do a good job”, she says.

The young lawyer describes her experience at law school as “nice and a worthwhile experience, after being away from home (Nigeria) for long”.

She says it was unlike when she was growing up when, according to her, “going to school was difficult, because your erstwhile friends and school mates were told not to talk to you; and parents withdrew their kids from some activities because we (Al-Mustapha’s children) were participating. Then you had some people (armed) following us about”.

On ways to avoid delay in dispensation of justice, Fatima advises that: “We need to put in the forefront protection of the fundamental human rights of the accused”, adding: “If we get that into our judicial officers, we are ready to go”.

Proud dad, Al-Mustapha in a chat with Sunday Sun says: “I feel a sense of fulfillment and can only give glory to the Almighty alone, because I’m alive to witness this day. Those who framed me up and put me in jail had the intention to kill me. Here is a child brought to me in prison as a toddler turning out to be an officer of the law, based on her rejection and opposition to my persecution. We give God the glory”.

Culled from Sunday Sun, November 9, 2014