A former Assistant Director of the Department of State Services (DSS), Dennis Amachree, has claimed that Nigeria’s late Head of State, General Sani Abacha, died of a cardiac arrest during an intimate encounter at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
Amachree made the claim in his newly released book, DSS @40: My Journey Behind the Shield, offering what he described as a firsthand account of the circumstances surrounding Abacha’s death in June 1998.
According to the former intelligence officer, who served as Assistant Director of Operations and Intelligence at the Lagos DSS Command at the time, Abacha died around 4:05 a.m. while in the company of a woman identified as a pharmacist.
He alleged that the woman, who had accompanied her elder sister—described as Abacha’s girlfriend—to Aso Rock earlier that night, was left alone with the military ruler after her sister returned to a hotel.
Amachree claimed that during the encounter, the woman noticed Abacha had become unresponsive and, after failing to detect a pulse, fled the Presidential Villa. He said she later boarded an early morning flight to Lagos before security agencies were alerted.
According to him, when Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, Abacha’s Chief Security Officer, was informed of the situation, the DSS launched a search for the woman, who had already left Abuja.
Amachree further disclosed that his team later tracked down and interrogated the woman in Lagos before she was flown back to Abuja for further questioning.
Quoting her account, he wrote that the woman insisted she had no involvement in Abacha’s death, allegedly telling investigators: “I did not kill him; he died on top of me.”
The former DSS official maintained that the woman’s testimony confirmed that Abacha suffered a coitus-induced cardiac arrest, dismissing years of speculation and conspiracy theories surrounding the late military leader’s sudden death.
General Abacha ruled Nigeria from November 1993 until his death on June 8, 1998. His administration remains one of the country’s most controversial, marked by allegations of human rights abuses, political repression and authoritarian rule.
His death has long been the subject of conflicting accounts and widespread speculation. Amachree’s latest claims add another perspective to the enduring debate over the circumstances surrounding the former military ruler’s demise.
