Former Chief Security Officer to the late Head of State, Gen Sani Abacha, Maj Hamza Al-Mustapha (retd.), has dismissed claims made by a former operative of the Department of State Services, Dennis Amachree, over the final moments of the late military ruler.\n<\/p>\n
Al-Mustapha described Amachree\u2019s claim that Abacha died from cardiac arrest during an intimate encounter with his girlfriend as false and urged Nigerians not to believe the account.\n<\/p>\n
He spoke with journalists on the sidelines of the 3rd General Hassan Usman Katsina Memorial Conference held at Arewa House, Kaduna.\n<\/p>\n
In his newly released memoir, DSS @40: My Journey Behind the Shield, Amachree, who served as Assistant Director of Operations and Intelligence at the Lagos DSS Command when Abacha died on June 8, 1998, said the late military ruler suffered the fatal episode at about 4:05am at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.<\/p>\n
Rejecting the claims, Al-Mustapha alleged that the former security operative\u2019s account was fabricated and did not reflect what transpired.\n<\/p>\n
The retired army major maintained that he possessed evidence capable of contradicting the version of events contained in Amachree\u2019s publication.\n<\/p>\n
However, Al-Mustapha did not elaborate on the nature of the evidence or indicate whether he intended to make it public.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe boy was asked by others to write those lies. I have all the CCTV footage of what happened in my custody, so what he said is not true,\u201d Al-Mustapha said. <\/p>\n
He urged Nigerians to disregard the claims, insisting that it was wrong to make allegations against a deceased person who could no longer defend himself.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cJust ignore his lies. It\u2019s bad to say such things about someone who is dead,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
Abacha, who took power in a military coup on November 17, 1993, ruled the country until his sudden death at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on June 8, 1998\n<\/p>\n
The Federal Government announced at the time that the Head of State died after a sudden illness, but the circumstances surrounding his death have remained one of the most controversial episodes in the country\u2019s political history.\n<\/p>\n
Over the years, conflicting accounts have emerged from former military officers, intelligence operatives, diplomats and political actors, with various books and interviews offering different versions of what happened during Abacha\u2019s final hours.\n<\/p>\n
The differing narratives have continued to fuel public debate nearly three decades after his death.<\/p>\n
Al-Mustapha, one of Abacha\u2019s closest aides and perhaps the last senior official to have had direct access to him before his death, has consistently rejected allegations and narratives he believes misrepresent the late Head of State or the events of that period.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Chief Security Officer to the late Head of State, Gen Sani Abacha, Maj Hamza Al-Mustapha (retd.), has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[45],"tags":[74857,168040,167703,7145,160660,9798,14321,122,9287,23889,23228],"class_list":["post-348602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nigeria","tag-abacha","tag-abacha-death","tag-al-mustapha","tag-controversy","tag-dennis-amachree","tag-dss","tag-military-history","tag-nigeria","tag-nigerian-politics","tag-presidential-villa","tag-sani-abacha"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@africa\/116985468489110077","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}