Al-Mustapha Counters Ex-DSS Director, Insists Abacha Didn’t Die of Heart Attack
Hamza Al-Mustapha, a former Chief Security Officer (CSO) to General Sani Abacha, has dismissed claims that the late Military Head of State died of heart attack. Daily Trust had reported how a former Assistant Director of the Department of State Services (DSS), Dennis Amachree, claimed that late general Abacha died of heart attack contrary to […]
Sani Abacha
Hamza Al-Mustapha, a former Chief Security Officer (CSO) to General Sani Abacha, has dismissed claims that the late Military Head of State died of heart attack.
Daily Trust had reported how a former Assistant Director of the Department of State Services (DSS), Dennis Amachree, claimed that late general Abacha died of heart attack contrary to reports that he was poisoned.
Amachree, who disclosed this in his recently published book, ‘DSS @ 40: My Journey Behind the Shield’, insisted that evidence gathered after Abacha’s death pointed to a heart attack, adding that many accounts around his exit were speculative and not based on facts.
Speaking in an interview with TVC News, Amachree said, “A lot of people have come up with different stories about what happened, but they were not aware of the facts. They were looking at events from the outside and drawing conclusions.
“Some even claimed certain actions caused his death, but they are not doctors and cannot say with certainty what killed him.”
He added, “The girl who was with him when he died was later brought to me for questioning. When she entered my office, the first thing she said was, ‘I did not kill him.’ She was very direct about it,” he recalled.
But speaking with journalists in Kaduna on the sidelines of the 3rd General Hassan Usman Katsina Memorial Conference, Al-Mustapha said the account contained in the former DSS official’s book did not reflect what transpired, insisting that he possessed evidence to contradict the claims.
“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 alleged that the author was influenced by unnamed persons to publish the account and urged the public to disregard the claims.
“Just ignore his lies. It’s bad to say such things on someone that is dead,” he said.
Earlier at the conference held at Arewa House in Kaduna and organised by the New Vision Development Initiative (NEVDI), Al-Mustapha declared that Northern Nigeria was “directionless” and “totally hopeless”, blaming the situation on what he described as poor leadership and a lack of vision among the region’s political elite.
“The state of the North is totally hopeless. Speaking the truth to the situation is meant for patriots. People who praise-sing leaders in power, they are deceits, they are threats,” he said.
He criticised the absence of many Northern governors at the memorial conference, saying the event ought to have attracted the region’s political leadership.
“This would have supposed to make all the governors in the North to be here as early as 8:00. They don’t have the thinking, they don’t have the sacrifice, they don’t have the understanding, they don’t also have no strategy for the country. They don’t care about our future. The system is rotten, sincerely,” he said.
Addressing the representative of President Bola Tinubu at the event, Al-Mustapha argued that many people occupying public offices lacked a proper understanding of leadership.
“Representative of Mr. President, listen, you are a Northerner. Governors that are right here cannot attend. They don’t understand. Those who are in leadership position don’t even understand what leadership is all about.”
He called on the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) and the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) to convene a week-long retreat to chart a new course for the region.
“There is the need to organise a one-week retreat for the North because we are directionless. We care not about ourselves, daily deaths are happening, those in high positions are involved, they are insensitive… They take money outside the country….telling him lies about the state of the North and indeed the state of the country. That is hypocrisy,” he said.
Al-Mustapha also linked the poor attendance of Northern leaders at the memorial lecture to what he described as a broader leadership failure in the region.
“I know there is something wrong with the leadership of the North. Either they don’t acknowledge Hassan, or they don’t know the meaning of founding fathers, or they don’t respect culture, or they don’t respect history, or they don’t respect future and investing in it, and they’re careless. A carefree person… is not a leader that is a burden,” he said.
On economic development, the retired army officer challenged prevailing narratives about Lake Chad, insisting the lake still holds enormous economic potential if properly researched and harnessed.
He also urged Nigerians to embrace artificial intelligence (AI), describing it as the future of economic growth.
“The world has moved AI. I prefer to be given an opportunity in AI than to be given the entire oil in Nigeria,” he said, adding that Northern Nigeria possesses the mineral resources needed to establish additional AI data centres capable of driving digital innovation.