Nearly three decades after the sudden death of former military Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha, a retired senior operative of the Department of State Services (DSS), Dennis Amachree, has offered a fresh account of the events surrounding the late ruler’s final moments, insisting that Abacha died from a cardiac arrest during an intimate encounter rather than from poisoning or any assassination plot.
The claim is contained in Amachree’s newly released memoir, DSS @40: My Journey Behind the Shield. Amachree served as Assistant Director of Operations and Intelligence at the Lagos DSS Command when Abacha died on June 8, 1998.
According to the retired intelligence officer, the incident occurred at about 4:05 a.m. inside the Presidential Villa in Abuja after Abacha spent time with a woman whom he identified only as a pharmacist attending a professional conference in the Federal Capital Territory.
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Amachree alleged that the woman had accompanied her elder sister—described as Abacha’s girlfriend—to Aso Rock after the Head of State reportedly purchased a new sport utility vehicle for the elder sister.
He wrote that after the elder sister returned to her hotel, the younger woman remained alone with Abacha.
“At about 4.05 a.m., as they were getting intimate, the pharmacist realised Abacha had stopped moving. She called out to him, but he was unresponsive and stiff. She checked his pulse; there was none,” he wrote.
According to his account, the woman, frightened by the development, dressed quickly and requested transportation back to her hotel, telling soldiers on duty that “Oga” had instructed that she be taken back.
She later boarded an early morning flight to Lagos before security agencies became aware of the full circumstances surrounding the military ruler’s condition.
Amachree said that after Abacha’s Chief Security Officer, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, was informed around 5 a.m., efforts were launched to locate the woman, but she had already left Abuja.
He said he subsequently received instructions from the DSS headquarters to track and interrogate her in Lagos.
Recalling the encounter, Amachree quoted the woman as saying: “I did not kill him, he died on top of me.”
“My team located and brought her to my office. I interrogated her myself. The first thing she said to me was, ‘I did not kill him, he died on top of me.’ After her detailed account, I called the Director in Abuja, and she was immediately flown back,” he wrote.
The retired intelligence officer argued that the woman’s account challenges long-standing claims that Abacha was poisoned with apples or assassinated by foreign agents.
He maintained that the incident was the result of a coitus-induced cardiac arrest and said the account should put to rest decades of speculation surrounding the late military ruler’s death.
Abacha ruled Nigeria from November 1993 until his death on June 8, 1998, during a period marked by military rule, political repression and widespread human rights concerns. His sudden death paved the way for the transition to civilian democracy, which was completed in May 1999.
Although numerous theories have circulated over the years, Amachree’s account represents one of the most detailed narratives yet from a former senior DSS official directly involved in events following the incident.
