Nigeria - General Sani Abacha's Ghost

Yeah, he's dead, but his legacy lives on. As Nigeria's seventh military dictator, Sani Abacha took destitution, murder, repression, corruption and greed to a new stratosphere. This guy made Idi Amin look like a bona fide Berkeley philanthropist. The fat man was unscrupulous, power mad and paranoid. He rarely left Nigeria (who the hell would have him over for a state dinner anyhow?) and was involved in the last three coup attempts before finally taking the government's reigns on November 17, 1993. His first act was to abolish all democratic institutions, including the senate, the national assembly and the state councils. As well, he banned all political parties. He swept in military rule and purged the government of all civilians and the army of officers loyal to former president Major General Ibrahim Babangida, who himself seized power through a coup in August 1985. Without any political or ideological agenda at all, Abacha busied himself stuffing his pockets with embezzled cash-and lining those of the brown-nosing northern primroses-and executing dissidents. On March 22, 1999, US$75 million in missing state funds was located and recovered from former state ministers, cronies and relatives of Abacha. Those seizures brought the total amount recovered to date from Abacha's heists to just over US$760 million. This guy may have been no Suharto (US$15 billion pilfered), Mobuto Sese Seko (US$5 billion), Ethiopia's Haile Selassie (US$2 billion) or the Philippines' Marcos (US$10 billion), but Abacha could definitely get invited to the same blackjack table as Baby Doc Duvalier-who ripped off Haiti for US$500 million.

Buck Naked

In August 1998, hundreds of pissed pensioners, who hadn't received a pension payment since 1993, went on a rampage in Kogi State and beat a local official senseless, leaving him in the streets naked. In all probability, the official hadn't been paid his salary since 1993 and probably reported to work the next day naked.