The Human Right Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA has called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the National Assembly to set up through a legislative framework by way of an executive bill, a body of just few independent experts to work as effective oversight platform over officers and operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) to stem the worrisome incidence of indiscipline and professional misconducts.
HURIWA suggested that the commission which should be independent in operations and funding must not exceed a staff strength of 50 persons to guard against making the institution become like another avenue for creating jobs for political loyalists of the political party wielding power at the centre but the body should be that of highly regarded law, human rights and security experts to enforce disciplinary regime amongst the staff of both the DSS and the National Intelligence Agency.
HURIWA expressed consternation that a body set up by a statute such as the DSS has allowed its operatives and officers to derail from the rules of engagement and the good intention for which it was set up which is to prevent insecurity that threatens the nation state but instead what Nigerians are witnessing are cases of individual’s and group’s acts of infamy, recklessness and lawlessness as if to say that the men and officers of the DSS are above the laws of the land.
HURIWA condemned the use of DSS operatives to settle personal and commercial discord by powerful persons with links to the DSS. This tendency debases and greatly undermines the respectability that the SSS should enjoy in the affairs of the nation.
HURIWA condemns what it describes as a public show of shame in a market square in Abuja, when two people were on Saturday injured after an operative of the Department of State Service allegedly shot at a man in a market in the Garki 2 area of Abuja even as it was gathered that a woman had invited a DSS operative to accost a tailor she had given clothes to work on, after having delayed the job for some time.
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Information available stated that in a bid to avoid being manhandled by the DSS operative, the tailor ran away but he was shot in the leg allegedly by the DSS operative, while a bullet also hit a girl nearby. Consequently, the other tailors in the market descended on the shooter and beat him up, as well as the police outpost in the market after the police officers there came to the aide of the DSS operative.
HURIWA recalled that the police thereafter reinforced and returned to the market, firing teargas to disperse the angry tailors.
Meanwhile, the FCT police command in a statement explained that normalcy has been restored to the area and weapons used during the altercation have been recovered. HURIWA is calling on the authority to ensure that this case of gross indiscipline and attempted multiple murders is not jeopardised by officialdom but the indicted operative must be subjected to the relevant laws of the land and punished in accordance with the rule of law.
Also, HURIWA lamented that in July, a tussle ensued after a Lagos court granted the suspended CBN chief bail and ordered that he should be moved from DSS custody and remanded at a correctional centre.
Officials of the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCS) and operatives of theDSS fought over the custody of suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele.
Besides, the DSS operatives armed to their teeth and prison officials clashed over the agency to take custody of the suspended and embattled apex bank chief after Justice Nicholas Oweibo of the Federal High Court in Lagos admitted Emefiele to bail in the sum of the N20m and had ordered that the suspended Central Bank of Nigeria’s erstwhile helmsman be kept at the Ikoyi prison pending fulfilment of the bail conditions.
HURIWA recalled that shortly after the ruling, DSS operatives strategically positioned their Hilux Pick Up van used in bring Emefiele to court, in a manner suggesting that they wanted to take him back to their detention centre.
This prompted Emefiele’s lead counsel, Joseph Daudu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), and other lawyers to raise an alarm about their client’s planned re-arrest by the secret police.
After the court ruling, the suspended CBN governor holed up inside the courtroom with his lawyers.
However, when the prison officials moved to take Emefiele into custody pending the fulfillment of his bail conditions, the secret police challenged them and it led to a fight.
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Amid the clash, Emefiele’s lawyers “reluctantly allowed the DSS disobey court order and take custody of their client” to avoid a gun battle. The prison officials then exited the court in their vehicle and the DSS took charge.
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President Bola Tinubu had suspended Emefiele as the apex bank chief on June 9, 2023, HURIWA recalled.
HURIWA said that though the DSS said the aforementioned matter was being investigated, but regrettably nothing has come out of the internal investigation since it is impracticable for someone to be the prosecutor and juror in his own case which is why the Rights group is advocating the immediate setting up of a lawful body of experts to monitor and enforce discipline to erring staff of both the SSS and the NIA where applicable.
HURIWA also stated that another major show of shame by the DSS happened soon after President Bola Tinubu was inaugurated when operatives of the Department of State Security have stormed the Lagos office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, preventing officials of the anti-graft agency from gaining access to their office in Ikoyi, Lagos. Impeccable sources in both agencies told a media house that there has been an ongoing rivalry between the DSS and the EFCC over the ownership of the building. HURIWA said that this disgraceful conduct only stopped when the newly inaugurated President personally intervened and called both institutions of law enforcement to order.
It was gathered that the DSS operatives stormed the office around 7:00 am May ending and refused to leave despite dialogue between operatives of both agencies.
In another of the seemingly unending cases if professional indiscipline, HURIWA further stated that someone who appeared before the Enugu State governorship election petition tribunal as a witness of the PDP and identified himself erroneously as the serving Director whereupon he gave evidence whereby he castigated the National Youth Service Corps for rejecting the NYSC Certificate in the possession of Governor Peter Mbah as fake. The so-called Director of DSS also told the tribunal that NYSC was wrong in categorising Peter Mbah’s certificate as forged.
HURIWA however said days after the man made the appearance, it was confirmed that he was a long retired official and that there was no position like he quoted before the tribunal. HURIWA said till date, the DSS or SSS has not invited and interrogated the said retired personnel for appearing under a false identity before a competent Court of law and gave a testimony under oath. This apparent failure if leadership within the SSS is worrisome and must not be swept under the carpets of impunity since the SSS or DSS is a body set up by an extant law.
HURIWA is therefore calling for a purposeful panacea to the unprecedented cases of professional misconducts within the DSS and the seeming absence of any sort of a body set up by law to investigate such appalling cases of professional misdemeanours in the DSS especially given the fact that the relevant oversight committees within the National Assembly don’t have what it takes to carry out this onerous responsibility which is why the cases of indiscipline have continued to come up without any end in sight and are being overlooked by both the executive and the legislative Arms of government.
“We know that the Police Service Commission is a body constitutionally set up to combat cases of indiscipline and professional misconducts in the Nigeria Police. But which of the bodies set up by law is authorised to act as effective oversight body to monitor the DSS and enforce disciplinary control over their members and officers? It is the lack of clarity that has made some deviants within the DSS to take the law into their hands believing that they are above the laws of the land.”
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