A former Assistant Director of the Department of State Services (DSS), Dennis Amachree, has claimed that Nigeria’s late military Head of State, General Sani Abacha, died after suffering a cardiac arrest during a sexual encounter at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
Amachree made the revelation in his newly released memoir, DSS @40: My Journey Behind the Shield, where he gave what he described as a firsthand account of the events surrounding Abacha’s sudden death on June 8, 1998.
The retired intelligence officer, who was serving as Assistant Director of Operations and Intelligence at the Lagos State Command of the DSS at the time, wrote that the incident occurred at about 4:05 a.m. inside the Aso Rock Presidential Guest House.
According to him, Abacha had been with a woman identified only as a pharmacist when he suddenly became motionless during an intimate encounter.
“At about 4.05 am, as they were getting intimate, the pharmacist realized Abacha had stopped moving. She called out to him, but he was unresponsive and stiff. She checked his pulse; there was none,” Amachree wrote.
The former DSS operative explained that the woman had accompanied her elder sister—whom he described as Abacha’s girlfriend—to the Presidential Villa earlier that evening. He said the elder sister later returned to her hotel after the late Head of State reportedly showed interest in the younger woman.
“With her was her younger sister, a pharmacist who was in Abuja for a conference. The Head of State had just bought his girlfriend a new SUV, and they decided to stop by to say hello to ‘Oga’.
“Abacha was taken with the younger sister, and after a short while, the girlfriend returned to the hotel, leaving the pharmacist alone with the Head of State.”
Amachree said the woman panicked after discovering that Abacha had died and quietly left the Guest House without alerting security personnel about what had happened.
“In a state of panic, she quickly dressed and left the guest house, telling the soldier on guard duty that ‘Oga’ had asked for a car to take her back to her hotel,” he wrote.
According to the memoir, the woman later informed her elder sister, and the two allegedly rushed to the Abuja airport, where the pharmacist boarded an early morning flight to Lagos before security agencies became aware of the incident.
Amachree said investigators eventually tracked her down in Lagos for questioning, where she denied any involvement in Abacha’s death.
“The first thing she said to me was: ‘I did not kill him, he died on top of me,’” Amachree wrote.
The retired DSS officer maintained that the woman’s account provides the most accurate explanation of the former military ruler’s death and dismisses years of speculation and conspiracy theories.
“The lady pharmacist’s account, on whom Abacha apparently had a coitus-induced cardiac arrest, remains the true position, and puts an end to the conspiracy theories and half-truths that have gone viral,” he stated.
General Sani Abacha died on June 8, 1998, while serving as Nigeria’s Head of State, bringing an abrupt end to his military administration. His death occurred less than a month before the passing of Chief MKO Abiola, widely regarded as the winner of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election.
