Dan Etete, Former Petroleum Resources Minister, has challenged an account detailing the death of former military Head of State Sani Abacha. Etete demanded medical, security, and documentary evidence to substantiate claims that the former ruler suffered a cardiac arrest in 1998 at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
Etete dismissed the narrative built on the recollections of former State Security Service officer Dennis Amachree as an unsubstantiated story published 28 years after the event. Speaking on the claims, Etete stressed that the death of a sitting Head of State required verifiable evidence rather than memoir-based accounts. He noted that Amachree provided no post-mortem reports, interrogation records, flight details, or official documents.
The controversy follows excerpts from Amachree’s memoir, DSS @40: My Journey Behind the Shield. Amachree claimed Abacha suffered a coitus-induced cardiac arrest at 4:05 a.m. on 8 June 1998.
In a statement titled ‘Twenty-Eight Years On, Still No Evidence,’ Etete questioned how Amachree could offer precise details without official records. Etete demanded to know the identity of the woman allegedly involved, questioning why security authorities allowed her to leave Nigeria.
Hamza Al-Mustapha ,Former Chief Security Officer, also refuted the narrative, describing Amachree’s account as false. Al-Mustapha claimed to possess closed-circuit television footage disproving the allegations.
Etete noted that this version of events never surfaced during past official inquiries when key witnesses were alive. Etete clarified that he spoke as a former cabinet member who knew Abacha personally, describing the narrative as unverified and driven by cheap publicity.
Amachree, an Assistant Director of Operations and Intelligence at the Lagos SSS Command in 1998, maintained his version of events in his memoir. He stated that a woman stayed with Abacha after her sister returned to a hotel.
Amachree claimed the woman panicked after discovering Abacha was unresponsive, arranged transport through a guard, and flew to Lagos. He maintained that SSS operatives located and interrogated her, where she allegedly stated Abacha died of natural causes while they were together.