Former Chief Security Officer to the late military ruler, Hamza Al-Mustapha, has claimed he possesses CCTV footage showing the final moments of Sani Abacha, dismissing allegations that the former head of state died during an intimate encounter with a woman.
Speaking to journalists in Kaduna, as reported by The Nation, Al-Mustapha described recent claims made by retired Department of State Services (DSS) operative Dennis Amachree as false and politically motivated.
“The boy was asked to write the lies by others. I have all the CCTV footages of what happened in my custody, so what he said are not true,” Al-Mustapha said.
He urged the public to ignore the claims, arguing that it was unfair to make allegations against someone who could no longer defend himself.
“Just ignore his lies. It’s bad to say such things about someone that is dead,” he said.
“But I want to assure you that the author of the book is acting out a script. He is not acting alone.
“At the appropriate time, I will respond to these lies. You don’t tell your enemies your plans.”
The controversy follows claims in Amachree’s 348-page memoir, DSS @ 40: My Journey Behind the Shield, in which the retired intelligence officer alleged that Abacha died in the early hours of June 8, 1998, after suffering what he described as a coitus-induced cardiac arrest inside the Presidential Villa Guest House in Aso Rock.
According to Amachree, the incident involved a Nigerian pharmacist.
“The lady pharmacist on whom Abacha apparently had a coitus-induced cardiac arrest, remains the true position and puts an end to the conspiracy theories and half-truths that have gone viral,” he wrote.
Al-Mustapha has previously maintained that Abacha’s death was linked to a handshake with a security operative attached to a visiting foreign dignitary.
Abacha ruled Nigeria from November 1993 until his death in June 1998, just weeks before the death of MKO Abiola, the presumed winner of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election, who died while in detention under the military government.
