Former Chief Security Officer,(CSO),to the late military head of state, Gen. Sani Abacha, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha on Saturday
in Enugu said he had no regret over the decisions he took while at the
Presidential Villa or his experience during his long years of
incarceration for offenses he knew nothing about.
He said rather than have regret, he garnered lots of experiences that would eventually propel him to greater heights.
“The
trouble I went through was nothing, maybe somebody would ask whether I
have regret for perhaps not taking up the mantle when I had the
opportunity to do something for Nigeria; well I have no regret because
as a military officer, I was trained to defend, protect and promote the
nation’s security and well being. If power was all I came for, I may
have ended up joining the group that destroyed Nigeria, it was better to
suffer than to exploit. I have no regret about life, life is about
negatives and positives, that is what life is all about. The experience
you had yesterday are what make you a man, if there are no pains, there
will be no gain,”.
The
former security chief who was guest lecturer at the Grand Finale of the
2016 Press Week of the Enugu Council of the Nigeria Union of
Journalists (NUJ), also blamed failure of leadership for the herdsmen
menace that had claimed hundreds of lives across the country.
He
said Nigerian leaders at all levels needed to imbibe patriotic spirit
in all their activities, noting that absence of commitment to National
ideals had remained a major challenge to the country.
“Arms
need to be mopped up like Margaret Thatcher did in England, we need to
adopt the formula in order to rid the nation of these arms that are
littered everywhere. We also need to motivate the security agencies in
order for them to be alive to their responsibilities. We also need to
discover points of illegal sales and acquisition of arms.
“It
might shock you to know that as at today, no military or civil agency
will be able to tell you the number of arms that have come into the
country from 1998 till date. We are simply living by the Grace of God.
You can imagine the quantum of arms in circulation, yet there is peace
in the country. It simply shows that an average Nigerian is a peace
loving person. In some countries, it would have been terrible. We are
family oriented, dependable. What is helping other nations is the law,
but in Nigeria we commit little crimes and still believe in our brothers
and sisters”, he said.
Mustapha
who spoke on the theme “Herdsmen Menace in Nigeria: the way forward”
also said desertification that threatened grazing grounds in the North
and the inability to spell out grazing routes was one major reason why
herders preferred to move towards the east for grazing.
He
also used the opportunity to express optimism that one day, Bakassi
Peninsula presently ceded to Cameroon, will return to Nigeria insisting
that the peninsula was ceded wrongly to Cameroon by the International
Court of Justice.
Thisday
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