You Can’t Remove DSS Boss, South, Middle Belt Leaders Tell Buhari

By Jonathan Eze

Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to perish the thought of removing the acting Director General of the Department of State Security (DSS), Mr. Matthew Seiyefa, over his recent move aimed at repositioning the service.

In a statement signed yesterday by Yinka Odumakin (South-west); Senator Bassey Henshaw (South-south); Prof. Chigozie Ogbu (South-east); Dr. Isuwa Dogo (Middle Belt), the forum also urged President Buhari to call his Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, to order, alleging that he is the one championing the course.

It added that the plot to remove Seiyefa is hinged on the professional reorganisation of the service by him which the cabal is now interpreting as removing APC elements in DSS for PDP apologists.

The forum said what the acting DG has done is a good example of how to run a diverse polity, which this administration has ignored in the last three years.

The group alleged that under the sacked DG, Lawal Daura, every need to organise the service along federal character and fill existing vacancies was ignored as he concentrated on nepotism in running DSS and keeping a coterie of those who have retired or have passed retirement in service and many of them having nothing to contribute.

The statement further stated that Seiyefa reportedly noticed that there were three other directors from the South-south apart from himself and decided to relieve two of them so that a director could be brought in from the South-west that had nobody on the management and another person from the North-west.

“There were about 40 senior officers who were due for retirement or pre-retirement leave whom he had found competent replacement for in a fair manner and according to the service rules,” the group said.

The forum further said: “The attention of the Southern and middle Belt Leaders Forum has been drawn to a clandestine plot to remove the acting Director General of the Department of State Security (DSS), Mr. Matthew Seiyefa, from office by a cabal in the Buhari presidency .

“We ordinarily would have ignored this report but for the clannishness, sectional proclivity and exclusive handling of the security architecture of the country by President Buhari in the last three years.

“He had defied all protestations from all well-meaning Nigerians in making appointments into all key and sensitive security positions in sectional and kith and kin affairs in a very insensitive and you-can-do-your-worst manner that until the recent sack of Daura, 16 out of 17 service chiefs were from his corner of the country.

“It is equally not lost us that since the president returned from his holidays in London, he has not made a comment on the invasion of the National Assembly by the DSS in his absence which led to the acting president rightly removing the former Daura, confirming speculation that he is not happy with the removal.

“All these confirm the politicisation of a purely security outfit and the denigration of all institutions by an administration that has shown scant regard for the due process.

“We call on President Buhari to immediately call his Chief of Staff to order so that he can withdraw the obnoxious directive and allow the agency to run professionally.”