A former Assistant Director of the Department of State Services, Dennis Amachree, has said late former military Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha, died after suffering a cardiac arrest while with his girlfriend.
Amachree made the claim in his newly released memoir, DSS @40: My Journey Behind the Shield, with excerpts published by The Nation on Tuesday.
The retired intelligence officer also rejected the long-standing conspiracy theories about the circumstances surrounding Abacha’s death.
Amachree, who was Assistant Director of Operations and Intelligence at the Lagos DSS Command when Abacha died in June 1998, said the incident happened around 4:05 a.m. at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
He claimed the woman who was with Abacha became frightened after noticing he was no longer responding and left the Presidential Villa before security officials became aware of what had happened.
According to him, the woman was a pharmacist attending a conference in Abuja. He said she had accompanied her elder sister, who was said to be Abacha’s girlfriend, to Aso Rock that night.
“At approximately 2.40 am, shortly after Gen. Useni left, Abacha’s girlfriend, an Igbo lady (name withheld), arrived at the Aso Rock Guest House from the Nicon Noga Hilton Hotel.
“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,” he wrote.
Amachree said the woman later realised Abacha had stopped responding during the encounter.
“At about 4.05 am, 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 also claimed the woman requested a vehicle back to her hotel before leaving the villa.
“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.”
Amachree said she boarded an early morning flight to Lagos before security agencies could question her. He added that after Abacha’s Chief Security Officer, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, was informed around 5 a.m., attempts to find the woman failed because she had already left Abuja.
He said DSS headquarters later directed him to trace and question her in Lagos.
Recalling the meeting, he quoted the woman as saying, “I did not kill him, he died on top of me.”
He added,”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.”
Amachree maintained that her account challenged the different stories that have surrounded Abacha’s death over the years.
“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 said.
Abacha ruled Nigeria from November 1993 until his death on June 8, 1998, while still in office. His sudden death has continued to attract speculation for almost three decades, with different accounts emerging over the years.
