Sani Abacha, the general who seized power in Nigeria in 1993, died Monday of a heart attack, family friends said.
Word of Abacha's death at age 54 came after heavily armed soldiers sealed off his home and office in the capital, Abuja. Only the country's top military brass were permitted to enter the compound.In keeping with Muslim practice, a funeral will be held within the next 24 hours, Abacha's family said.
Even in a country long battered by hard-line military regimes, Abacha stood out as icy and unforgiving, willing to flout world opinion in his quest for absolute power.
Critics, be they Nobel laureates, former heads of state or environmental activists, faced certain arrest and sometimes execution if they persisted in challenging Abacha and his military government.
Sani Abacha, born Sept. 20, 1943, in the northern state of Kano, was a career soldier, enrolling in the army as an infantryman at 18 and attending military training colleges in the United Kingdom and United States in addition to Nigeria.
When generals ousted Nigeria's last civilian government in 1983, it was Abacha who announced it on national television.