General Sani Abacha was born on Monday, September 20, 1943 in Kano and also died and was buried on Monday, June 8, 1998.
Today marks 18 years of the demise of General Sani Abacha, the most popular Kanuri person in the world, who was arguably regarded as the most patient man on earth. A man of diminutive stature: just 5feet, 4inches. You would be thoroughly stupefied at his height. A man of fire, iron and steel. The General lorded absolute power and unbridled authority over 120 million souls. Not even Generals dared cross his path. Those who did, knelt and wept before him while he offered them tissue paper to wipe their salty tears.
Not even a plea from the Pope could melt his heart. Mandela begged him to no avail. No one messed with Abacha. He was gentle. Listening. Cunning. Daring. Attentive. Dangerous. Brave. Abacha was Brutal. It will thrill you that for all his evils, he accepted who and what he was. Indeed, the history of Nigeria is incomplete without a succinct recourse to the man Sani Abacha. To some he is a hero, to others he is a tyrant. To many more, he just had flaws that he was too carefree about protecting.
Here, we take a look at 18 interesting facts you may not know about General Sani Abacha:
1. A Kanuri originally from Borno State, General Sani Abacha was born, brought up and buried in Kano State.

2. He married a Shuwa Arab, Maryam, also from Borno state, in 1965 and they had six boys and three girls. The first child, Ibrahim, died in a plane crash in 1996. The last of their children was born in Aso Rock in 1994 when Abacha was 50 and his wife 47.

3. Abacha was the first and only military head of state who never skipped a rank to become a full-star general.

4. He never held a non-military appointment in his career until he became minister of defence in 1990 (later re-designated secretary of defence in 1993). He was a Lt. Gen. then.

5. Many streets in Sierra Leone are named after Abacha, because he was instrumental to the restoration of peace and democracy in Sierra Leone and Liberia after years of civil wars. He is credited with restoring Nigeria’s standing as an African Power when he twice ordered the Nigerian Military to Intervene and restore the civilian and Democratic governments of Sierra Leone and Liberia after a series of Military Coups in both countries.

6. He oversaw an increase in the country’s foreign exchange reserves from $494 million dollars in 1993 to $9.6 billion by the middle of 1997 and reduced the external debt of Nigeria from $36 billion in 1993 to $27 billion by 1997.

7. Abacha operated a complicated style of leadership, and he gave a free hand to all those working under him. He allowed them to carry out their duties without interfering (he was a master at delegating duties), he allowed them to disagree with one another and even debate during meetings.

8. Abacha spoke softly, almost inaudibly, like in a whisper and you have to strain your ears to hear him. He was not a man of emotion, he never raised his voice even when angry but he lets actions, not thunderous words, speak for him.

9. Two of the most important recommendations of the 1995 constitutional conference he set up are: 13% derivation for oil-producing areas and six geo-political zones.

10. He increased fuel price just once in his four-and-a-half years in office and set up the Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund, which was widely acknowledged to have performed well in infrastructural development and intervention programmes in education, health and water.

11. He is by some records the most successful coup plotter in the history of Nigeria’s military. Abacha participated in every single successful coup in Nigerian history and was instrumental in the coups which brought and removed General Muhammadu Buhari from power in 1983 and 1985 respectively.

12. It was under Abacha that Nigeria became a perpetual importer of petroleum products, as all the refineries packed up.

13. In 2004, Abacha was listed as the fourth most corrupt leader in history.

14. Abacha rarely appeared in public, refused to grant interviews or allow the publication of any personal information about him, and developed a habit of working only at night.

15. In 1995, Time magazine named Abacha “Thug of the Year.”

16. Abacha died in June 1998 while at the presidential villa in Abuja. He was buried on the same day in Kano, according to Muslim tradition, without an autopsy. This fueled speculation that he may have been executed extra-judicially by way of being poisoned by political rivals via prostitutes. On the contrary, the government cited his cause of death as a sudden heart attack.

17. Abacha remains the shortest Head of State in Nigerian history. He was 5feet, 4inches tall.

18. He left fifteen grandchildren; eight girls and seven boys.

Source: http://www.historyvilleng.com/2016/06/08/18-interesting-facts-you-may-not-know-about-general-sani-abacha/

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History indeed . I remember that day of his death, everyone was rejoicing though I did not really understand the reason. History

I love the Man. He is indeed great. That's my personal opinion of him. He also did well economically, in spite of numerous embargos placed on Nigeria by the western powers.