A former Assistant Director of the Department of State Services, Dennis Amachree, has claimed that Nigeria’s former military Head of State, General Sani Abacha, suffered a fatal cardiac arrest during an intimate encounter with the younger sister of his girlfriend at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
Amachree made the claim in his newly released 348-page memoir, DSS @40: My Journey Behind the Shield, in which he presented what he described as the eyewitness account obtained from the woman who was allegedly with Abacha shortly before his death on June 8, 1998.
The retired intelligence officer, who was Assistant Director of Operations and Intelligence at the Lagos State Command of the State Security Service at the time, rejected longstanding theories that Abacha died after eating poisoned apples or was killed through a conspiracy.
According to Amachree, Abacha’s girlfriend arrived at the Aso Rock Guest House from the Nicon Noga Hilton Hotel at about 2:40 a.m. on the day of his death.
He claimed that the woman was accompanied by her younger sister, a pharmacist who had travelled to Abuja to attend a professional conference.
Amachree said Abacha had recently bought his girlfriend a sport utility vehicle and that the two women went to the guest house to greet the military ruler.
He alleged that Abacha became interested in the younger woman and that the girlfriend later returned to the hotel, leaving her pharmacist sister alone with him.
According to the account, the younger woman discovered at about 4:05 a.m. that Abacha had become motionless and unresponsive during their intimate encounter.
Amachree claimed that she called out to him and checked his pulse but found no sign of life.
He said the woman panicked, dressed hurriedly and left the guest house without immediately alerting security personnel that the Head of State had become unresponsive.
She allegedly told the soldier on guard duty that Abacha had directed that a vehicle should take her back to her hotel.
The guard reportedly arranged the transportation without suspecting that anything had happened to the military ruler.
Amachree said the woman returned to the hotel, informed her elder sister of the incident and departed Abuja for Lagos on an early-morning flight.
According to him, Abacha’s Chief Security Officer, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, was informed about the military ruler’s condition at about 5 a.m., by which time efforts to locate the woman in Abuja were unsuccessful.
Amachree claimed that the woman had already boarded a 7 a.m. flight to Lagos before security agencies arrived at the hotel to question her.
He said the Director of Operations at the DSS headquarters subsequently contacted him and instructed his team in Lagos to locate, arrest and interrogate the woman before returning her to Abuja.
The former DSS officer said his operatives traced the woman and brought her to his office in Ogudu, Lagos, where he personally questioned her about what happened inside the Aso Rock Guest House.
According to Amachree, the first statement she made during the interrogation was: “I did not kill him, he died on top of me.”
He said the woman provided a detailed account of the incident, after which he contacted the Director of Operations in Abuja and arranged for her immediate return to the Federal Capital Territory.
Amachree maintained that her testimony was credible because she was allegedly the only person with Abacha when he became unresponsive.
He described the death as a cardiac arrest induced during sexual activity and argued that the woman’s account should put an end to the conflicting narratives surrounding the former military ruler’s sudden death.
The retired intelligence officer said accounts linking Abacha’s death to poisoned apples or other covert plots were inconsistent with the information obtained directly from the woman.
Amachree also disclosed that his version of the incident was contained in Chapter 17 of the memoir, titled “The Months of Death: A Turning Point in Nigerian History.”
Abacha ruled Nigeria from November 1993 until his sudden death on June 8, 1998, at the age of 54.
His death paved the way for General Abdulsalami Abubakar to become Head of State and initiate the political transition that culminated in the return to civilian government on May 29, 1999.
For nearly three decades, the circumstances surrounding Abacha’s death have generated numerous competing accounts, including allegations of poisoning and assassination.
Amachree’s narrative is presented as his recollection of an interrogation conducted in 1998. No official statement from the DSS confirming the account accompanied the publication of the excerpts, and the woman referred to in the memoir was not publicly identified.
Punch
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