The coup of 1995 was said to be a phantom coup, that Abacha merely set people up and forced some to give evidence?

What was fake about the coup? There was a proper panel set up. The procedure for setting up the panel was proper. The panel did a very thorough job. Proper charges were brought against the plotters.

It investigated the allegations against those involved. And people say it was a fake coup.

Nobody in his right senses would just call people together and say they should come and frame up somebody.  The head of the panel has said it that if it happened again he would do what he did.  When it suits people they say Obasanjo was framed. It was a proper coup but Abacha didn’t kill Obasanjo; but Obasanjo killed when he was head of state.

Abacha’s last 24 hours before his death, how were they like.  It was no secret that you always had your time with him in the evenings. What actually killed Abacha?

Well, it is true that I always saw him in the evening.  And one thing I made sure was that I never took official matters to him.  I never went there to gossip.  As I said, we had been long time friends.  Some times I would wait up till 11pm or 12 mid-night so that he would have finished with all those people who would normally take their problems to him. I think that day I just came back from Gusau and I was feeling tired and I’d thought I would take the evening off.  But once I came in, I got a telephone call from the Villa that they were waiting for me there. I think it was the day Yasser Arafat (late) came to Nigeria and Abacha was to receive him. In fact by the time we finished Abacha himself was very tired because he slept all through the evening on our way back from the airport. So I told people that the man was tired they should allow him rest for some time.  So I went back to meet him around 10 pm or so and I left him around 2:30 am. The next morning around 10:30 I think I had two administrators with me in the office when another call came.  They said they were waiting for me at the Villa and I got a bit upset that ‘why must they always wait for me at the Villa – every time they are waiting for me, they are waiting for me’. When I got to the Villa, they said Abacha died. I said, ‘died? But I was with him till very late’.

What time did they say he died?

May be around 5 am or so.

Who and who did you meet when you got to the Villa?

I was surprised: The Inspector General of Police was already there. The service chiefs were also there already.

They were all contacted before you?

Yes! I even asked why were all these people contacted before anybody called me to tell me?

They all knew I was the closest to him. Even the Chief Justice was also there before I got to the Villa.  I met all of them there. But the important thing at that time was how to bury him.

The story people have refused to let go of is that you were both out till very late, enjoying and drinking with some women and that he ate apple and died of possible poisoning from the apple?

People said all that, about apple poisoning him; some women poisoned him and all that. There is an autopsy report on what killed him.

But the autopsy report could be doctored to protect him?

Doctored how? They cut his body and sent to Germany. The report that came back said Abacha died of natural causes. They cut his body again and sent to the United Kingdom, the report that came back said he died of natural causes. The man had been ill any way.

How did family members relate with you on the day of his death?

It wasn’t just how they related to me, I was even being suspected of a possible culpability in his death.

If you remember during the Oputa Panel in Lagos, where Mustapha said if there was anybody that was owed an apology, it was General Useni because I was suspected. Though I was the most senior military officer but politically then I wasn’t. By political appointment, the Chief of Defence Staff was the most senior but even at that, the suspicion that I had a hand in his death also played a role in the whole thing and that was why I was bypassed. But Mustapha told them in the court there that if there was anybody to apologise to it was General Useni. And the autopsy report was very clear about the cause of death.

full interview

I smell a fish!

Something is definitely wrong somewhere, I pray I'd rise †o †hat top position so I can also investigate all these deaths...... God bless Nigeria......