By Samuel Akpan
Decades after Sani Abacha’s sudden demise on June 8, 1998, retired intelligence officer Dennis Amachree is setting the record straight about his death.
In excerpts from his memoir, DSS @40: My Journey Behind the Shield, the former Assistant Director of Operations and Intelligence dismisses the persistent conspiracy theories surrounding the dictator’s final hours.
Amachree alleged that Abacha suffered a cardiac arrest around 4:05 a.m. at the Presidential Villa while intimate with a guest, a pharmacist who had tagged along to Aso Rock with her sister, Abacha’s girlfriend.
He wrote: “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’.”
According to Amachree, Abacha was taken with the younger sister. After a short while the girlfriend returned to the hotel, leaving the pharmacist alone with the Head of State.
“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,” the memoir stated.
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.
She later travelled to Lagos on an early morning flight before security agencies could question her.
When Abacha’s Chief Security Officer, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, was informed of the military ruler’s condition around 5 a.m., efforts were made to trace the woman, but she had already departed Abuja.
Amachree said DSS headquarters later directed him to locate and interrogate her in Lagos.
Recalling the encounter, he quoted the woman as saying, “I did not kill him, he died on top of me.”
After her detailed account, Amachree called the Director in Abuja and she was immediately flown back.
Amachree argued that the pharmacist’s account contradicted several theories that have circulated 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.
Persecondnews recalls that Abacha had ruled Nigeria from November 1993 until his death while in office on June 8, 1998.