Ex-SSS officer challenges Al-Mustapha on Abacha’s death claims

A former Assistant Director of the State Security Services (SSS), Dennis Amachree, has challenged Hamza Al-Mustapha, the former Chief Security Officer to late Head of State, Sani Abacha, a general, to make public the closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage he claimed captured the events surrounding Abacha’s death in June 1998.

The challenge followed Al-Mustapha’s rejection of claims contained in Amachree’s newly released memoir, DSS @ 40: My Journey Behind the Shield, in which the retired intelligence officer alleged that Abacha died after suffering a sex-induced cardiac arrest.

Reacting to the account, Al-Mustapha dismissed the claims as fabricated, alleging that Amachree was merely acting out a script prepared by unnamed individuals.

“The boy was asked to write the lies by others. I have all the CCTV footages of what happened in my custody, so what he said are not true,” Al-Mustapha had said.

He urged Nigerians to disregard the claims, arguing that it was unfair to make allegations against someone who could no longer defend himself.

“But I want to assure you that the author of the book is acting out a script. He is not acting alone. At the appropriate time, I will respond to these lies. You don’t tell your enemies your plans,” he added.

He had previously maintained that Abacha died after shaking hands with a security operative attached to a visiting foreign dignitary, a claim that has never been independently verified.

Reacting, in an interview with the Nation, Amachree challenged Al-Mustapha to release the footage if he was sure of his vow.

The retired officer of the SSS, also known as Director of State Services (DSS), also defended the credibility of his memoir, stating that the publication underwent official scrutiny before it was released as part of activities marking the agency’s 40th anniversary.

According to him, the SSS thoroughly vetted and approved the manuscript prior to publication, adding that the service invited him from the United States for the official launch.

He noted that the event was attended by serving and retired senior security officials, state directors of the SSS, members of the diplomatic corps and other dignitaries, underscoring what he described as the institutional endorsement of the publication.

Amachree further rejected Al-Mustapha’s description of him as “a boy”, arguing that his career achievements within Nigeria’s intelligence service spoke for themselves.

“I was seven years old when Nigeria gained independence. I retired as an Assistant Director, which in Army terms is equivalent to a brigadier, while Al-Mustapha retired as a major,” he said.

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The exchange has reignited public interest in the circumstances surrounding Abacha’s sudden death on June 8, 1998, an event that has remained one of the most debated episodes in Nigeria’s political history.

In the newly released 348-page memoir, Amachree claimed that Abacha died in the early hours of June 8, 1998, after suffering what he described as a coitus-induced cardiac arrest while with a woman inside the Presidential Villa Guest House in Abuja.

According to Amachree, the woman involved was a Nigerian pharmacist who later fled Abuja before she was allegedly tracked to Lagos and interrogated by SSS operatives.

He wrote that the woman told investigators: “I did not kill him; he died on top of me,” arguing that her account represented the most accurate explanation of the former military ruler’s death and dismissed other conspiracy theories that have circulated for decades.

The ICIR reports that Abacha ruled Nigeria as military Head of State from November 17, 1993, until his death on June 8, 1998.

His sudden death at the Presidential Villa has remained one of Nigeria’s most enduring political mysteries. Over the years, competing narratives have emerged, including claims that he died of natural causes, was poisoned, or suffered a fatal heart attack. None of these accounts has been conclusively established through publicly available official records.

Abacha’s death came just weeks before the death in government custody of Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola, widely regarded as the winner of Nigeria’s annulled June 12, 1993, presidential election.

Nanji is an investigative journalist with the ICIR. She has years of experience in reporting and broadcasting human angle stories, gender inequalities, minority stories, and human rights issues. She has documented sexual war crimes in armed conflict, sex for grades in Nigerian Universities, harmful traditional practices and human trafficking.