They were two powerful friends, yet they never trusted each other all their military careers.

Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha each had reasons to constantly be observant.

In his recent book, Babangida said of Abacha: “The military was so factionalised that any move against Abacha at that time would have, to put it mildly, been problematic. The situation was so unstable that any wrong move on my part could have led to a bloodbath of a military coup.”