Abacha ex-CSO, Al-Mustapha Ignores Evidence, Claims Late Dictator Did Not Steal the Monies Linked to Him, Left External Reserves at Over $900bn

Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, the ex-Chief Security Officer of former Head of State Gen. Sani Abacha, has claimed that all the stolen money linked to the late dictator were not stolen by him but by people who succeeded him in office.

Al-Mustapha in an interview with the Voice of America (VOA) Hausa on Thursday said Abacha’s has nothing to do with the most recent tranche of stolen funds to be repatriated from the United States.

“But before Abacha died, our foreign reserve rose to over $900 billion. All the money being repatriated were those stolen by some leaders who served after Abacha’s death.

“The late Abacha’s successors in the Presidential Villa were the thieves who stole the billions and hid the money elsewhere.

“I was forced to implicate the leadership of the defunct PTF under President Buhari then, during the military era.

“If there will be a genuine fight against corruption in Nigeria, many people will be arrested” he said.

However, according to the joint statement issued on Monday by the US, State of Jersey and Nigerian government representatives on Monday, the funds to be repatriated to Nigeria was laundered between 1993-1998, the period Abacha held sway as head of state puncturing Al-Mustapha’s claims.

The current governor of Kebbi state, Atiku Bagudu an associate of the late dictator was implicated in the money laundering.

Bagudu spent 6 months in Texas federal detention before he was released to the Nigerian Government in 2003 after he agreed to return the sum of $163m in exchange for extradition to the state of Jersey to face criminal charges. Nigerian Government failed to prosecute Bagudu, who now enjoys immunity from prosecution as state governor.

The former CSO also failed to quote the source of his wild foreign reserve figures. Nigeria’s external reserves in 1998 the year Abacha died stood at USD 7,298,546,000. The highest it has ever risen in the nation’s history was $53,599,290,000 in 2008.