Al-Mustapha Dismisses Book's Account of Abacha's Death
Major Hamzat Al-Mustapha (rtd), the former chief security officer to General Sani Abacha, has publicly rejected claims from a recently published memoir that the late military ruler died during a sexual encounter with a Nigerian pharmacist. Al-Mustapha spoke to journalists on the sidelines of the 3rd General Hassan Usman Katsina Memorial Conference in Kaduna, as reported by The Nation on Sunday, July 26.
The disputed account appears in a 348-page memoir titled DSS @ 40: My Journey Behind the Shield, written by retired security official Dennis Amachree. Amachree alleged that Abacha suffered a cardiac arrest during intimacy with the pharmacist, contradicting earlier conspiracy theories about poisoning.
Former CSO Claims Possession of CCTV Evidence
Al-Mustapha dismissed the book’s narrative as a scripted story driven by unnamed individuals, insisting it bore no resemblance to what actually happened. He stopped short of providing his own account of Abacha's death but declared that he possesses CCTV footage covering the dictator's final moments. He did not elaborate further on the footage or when it might be released.
Previously, Al-Mustapha had suggested that Abacha died after shaking hands with a security guard attached to a visiting foreign dignitary. In the days before his death on June 8, 1998, Abacha had received emissaries from Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat and Pope John Paul II, who had traveled to Nigeria to appeal for the release of detainees.
Amachree's Book Rejects Poisoning Theories
In his memoir, Amachree rejected earlier stories that Abacha was poisoned through an apple delivered by two Indian women. He argued instead that the former head of state died of a cardiac arrest induced by sexual activity. Amachree wrote: “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 further claimed that his team located the woman and brought her in for questioning. “My team located and brought her to my office. I interrogated her myself,” he wrote. “The first thing she said to me was: ‘I did not kill him; he died on top of me.’ After her detailed account, I called the Director in Abuja, and she was immediately flown back.”
Decades of Conflicting Accounts Persist
The circumstances of Abacha's death have remained contested for nearly three decades. Multiple conflicting versions have circulated since 1998, ranging from poisoning to natural causes. Al-Mustapha's latest intervention adds a fresh layer of dispute, though he has yet to release or publicly present the footage he claims to hold.
In a related development, Nigerian presidential hopeful Peter Obi earlier stirred controversy by accusing some former pro-democracy activists of abandoning their ideals, comparing their conduct in power to that of the late Abacha.
