A retired Assistant Director of Operations and Intelligence of the Department of State Services (DSS), Dennis Amachree, has claimed that former military Head of State, General Sani Abacha, died during an intimate encounter with a woman at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on June 8, 1998.
Amachree made the claim in his newly released memoir, DSS @40: My Journey Behind the Shield, where he said the woman, a pharmacist, later told him during interrogation: “I did not kill him, he died on top of me.”
According to him, the woman had accompanied her elder sister to visit Abacha at the Aso Rock Guest House before she was left alone with the military ruler. He said Abacha became unresponsive during the encounter and was later discovered dead. The woman reportedly left the Villa, returned to her hotel and boarded an early morning flight to Lagos before security agencies began investigations.
Amachree said he was directed by the DSS headquarters to arrest the pharmacist after she arrived in Lagos. He said his team located her in Ogudu, interrogated her and later returned her to Abuja.
The retired security officer maintained that the woman’s account is the true story behind Abacha’s death, dismissing longstanding claims that the former military ruler was poisoned or assassinated.
He also rejected several alternative accounts, including claims involving poisoned apples, foreign intelligence agencies, Viagra use and conspiracy theories promoted by various public figures, insisting they were unsupported by evidence.
Amachree said he wrote the book to set the record straight and preserve what he described as the authentic account of one of Nigeria’s most controversial political events. He added that the controversy surrounding Abacha’s death reflects a wider culture of misinformation and lack of accountability in the country.
