Former Chief Security Officer to the late Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha, Maj. Hamza Al-Mustapha (retd.), has dismissed claims made by former Department of State Services operative Dennis Amachree regarding the circumstances surrounding Abacha’s death, insisting the account is false and should be ignored.
Al-Mustapha spoke with journalists during the 3rd General Hassan Usman Katsina Memorial Conference at Arewa House in Kaduna following renewed public discussion sparked by Amachree’s memoir, The Shadow Warrior.
The retired military officer rejected the account presented in the book, alleging that it did not reflect what actually happened.
“The 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,” Al-Mustapha said.
He claimed to possess evidence capable of contradicting the version contained in the publication but did not disclose further details or indicate whether he intended to release the alleged footage.
He also urged Nigerians not to believe the claims.
“Just ignore his lies. It’s bad to say such things about someone who is dead,” he added.
Abacha, who took power in a military coup on November 17, 1993, died suddenly at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on June 8, 1998. While the Federal Government announced that he died after a sudden illness, the circumstances surrounding his death have remained the subject of conflicting accounts over the years.
Amachree, a retired Assistant Director of the DSS who served during the Abacha administration, recently renewed the controversy by presenting his own version of the late military ruler’s final moments in his memoir.
Al-Mustapha has consistently defended the Abacha administration since regaining his freedom in 2013 after the Court of Appeal discharged and acquitted him in the high-profile criminal cases brought against him following the military era.
