A former Assistant Director of the Department of State Services (DSS), Dennis Amachree, has claimed that Nigeria’s late military Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha, died during an intimate encounter at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

Amachree made the claim in his memoir, DSS @40: My Journey Behind the Shield, where he recounted his account of the events surrounding Abacha’s death on June 8, 1998.

According to the retired DSS officer, who served as Assistant Director of Operations and Intelligence at the Lagos DSS Command at the time, Abacha died around 4:05 a.m. while with a female visitor at the Aso Rock Guest House.

He alleged that the woman, described as a pharmacist who was in Abuja for a conference, had accompanied her older sister identified as Abacha’s girlfriend to the Presidential Villa earlier that night.

Amachree said the older sister later returned to her hotel, leaving the younger woman alone with the late military ruler.

He further claimed that during the encounter, the woman noticed Abacha had become unresponsive and found that he had no pulse. According to the account, she quickly left the guest house after informing a soldier on duty that the Head of State had requested a vehicle to take her back to her hotel.

The former DSS official said the woman returned to the hotel, informed her sister of what had happened and was subsequently driven to the Abuja airport, where she boarded an early morning flight to Lagos.

Amachree alleged that by the time Abacha’s Chief Security Officer, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, was informed of the situation around 5 a.m., the woman had already left Abuja.

He said the DSS later traced and questioned the pharmacist in Lagos after receiving instructions from the agency’s headquarters.

According to Amachree, the woman maintained during questioning that she had no involvement in Abacha’s death, insisting that he had suddenly collapsed during the encounter.

The retired DSS officer said her account supported his conclusion that the late military ruler suffered a cardiac arrest during intercourse, arguing that it contradicted long-standing conspiracy theories surrounding Abacha’s death, including claims involving poisoning or foreign women.

Abacha ruled Nigeria from November 1993 until his death in June 1998. His administration remains one of the country’s most controversial military governments, marked by allegations of human rights abuses and political repression.

He died less than a month before the death of Chief MKO Abiola, the presumed winner of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election, who was in detention at the time.