MOHAMMED ABACHA AND HAMZA AL-MUSTAPHA AT THE LAGOS HIGH CO’URT — OCTOBER 14, 1999

MOHAMMED ABACHA AND HAMZA AL-MUSTAPHA AT THE LAGOS HIGH CO’URT — OCTOBER 14, 1999

MOHAMMED ABACHA AND HAMZA AL-MUSTAPHA AT THE LAGOS HIGH CO’URT — OCTOBER 14, 1999

This striking photograph shows Mohammed Abacha (left), son of former milit@ry Head of State General Sani Abacha, and Major Hamza al-Mustapha (right), who served as Abacha’s Chief Secur1ty Officer, arriving at the Lagos High Court on October 14, 1999.

The two men were facing charges connected to the 1996 ass@ssinat1on of Kudirat Abiola, the wife of businessman and politici@n Moshood Abiola.

Kudirat Abiola was sh0t d€@d in Lagos on June 4, 1996, in an ass@ssination that became one of the most controversi@l political k1ll!ngs of Nigeria’s milit@ry era.

Following the return to civili@n rule in 1999, investigations into the k1ll!ng intensified.

Mohammed Abacha and Major Hamza al-Mustapha were subsequently @rrested and pro$€cuted in connection with the case.

The case would go on for years and become one of the most closely watched mu’rder trials in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic.

A photograph from one of the most dramatic chapters in Nigeria’s politic@l history.

Where were you when the Kudirat Abiola mu’rder case was unfolding?