Group Cautions against Causing Disaffection among Secret Service Agencies

A group has warned that the campaign against director general of the Department of State Service (DSS) could create disaffection among Nigeria’s secret services.

The group, which is known as the Nation Building Imperatives (NBI), also cautioned that politicising and belittling the nation’s security apparatuses would not bode well with the efforts to bind the country together. 

The group described allegations against the director general of the DSS as wild and unfounded and advised against challenging the integrity of the country secret service in exchange for political profits. vIn a statement signed by the National Coordinator of NBI, Mr. Dagogo Henshaw, and its Public Affairs Officer, Mr. Danjuma Mwantok, NBI observed that there are efforts to create some form of tension and disaffection among the various secret service agencies, notably the DSS, the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and cautioned that if the current war being waged against the agencies is allowed to stand, the entire security architecture of the country would significantly diminish under the eroding influence of political carpetbaggers who do not have the interest of the nation at heart.

The group, which referenced the media activities of a Nigerian Twitter (now known as X) user, Jackson Ude, whose recent activities suggest a clear intention to tarnish the image of the officers and men of the DSS, advised Nigerians to work towards the preservation of the reputation of the DSS as secret police in the overall interest of the country.

On the allegations made by Ude that the DSS’s director general, Yusuf Bichi has refused to implement a certain 40 percent salary increment for officers and men of the service, the group dismissed the claim as spurious and unfounded, wondering how the DG of the establishment could prevent the implementation of a welfare package that was already approved.

“We view this allegation as mischievous and unfounded because the director general of DSS cannot prevent the implementation of welfare packages for his staff when he was not the person who made the approval in the first place. It is a known fact that the salaries and welfare packages of all federal civil servants, including the military and paramilitary services are approved and coordinated by the Nigeria Salaries and Wages Commission.

“Given this established structure, it is not even possible for the DG to interfere in the process, how much more preventing it? Assuming that it was even the call of the DG to either implement or stall approved welfare packages for staff, the question that should be asked is, what personal profits are due to the DG for stalling the welfare of his workers,” the group said.

The statement added: “The facts about the salaries and welfare of the staff of the DSS and the other military and paramilitary services are in the open and can be verified by any person whose sincere motive is to find the truth. A simple scan of the media space will be enough to reveal that there is no 40 percent salary increase anywhere to implement.

“We know this because in a story published by Daily Punch newspaper of November 1, 2023, the Honourable Minister of Interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, said he has been in talks with the Nigeria Salaries and Wages Commission to regularise the salaries of paramilitary officers to be on a par with the personnel of the Nigeria Police Force. What this simply means is that Messrs. Ude’s allegation is a work of fiction and probably designed to create internal unrest in the force and project the leadership of DSS in bad light before the President of Nigeria, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.”

On the allegation that Bichi’s wife was working with Folashade Tinubu-Ojo, Mr. President’s daughter, to extend the tenure of the DS DG, the group dismissed the allegation as a part of what was inherited from the 2023 elections politicking.

“While not holding brief for either the DSS DG’s wife or Mrs. Tinubu-Ojo, we can boldly state that the allegation is a clear extension of the 2023 electioneering campaign during which all manner of allegations were levelled against Mr. President and a number of his family members. As the nation’s number one secret service officer, the DSS DG has access to Mr. President and does not need his wife to lobby for anything he wants,” the group said.

Continuing, the statement reads: “You do not have to be in the security services to know the implications of removing servicing officials immediately after a change of government. There must be critical investigations deliverable that has to be completed before any change is made, assuming that is deemed even necessary.

“It is important to observe that shortly after he took over the reins of government, President Bola Tinubu changed the Service Chiefs, but in his wisdom, retained the heads of two of the secret service agencies, the NIA and the DSS. This suggests that the President may have assigned certain important roles to the heads of these agencies for which reason they are still in office. The President knows what he is doing. Trying to instigate operatives handling national security secrets will not augur well for Nigeria’s national security.

“There are a lot of wild and unfounded allegations in the statement by Jackson Ude and responding to all of them might be a waste of precious time. But we must not fail to respond to the one made against the person and office of the Adegboyega Fasasi, said to be the Chief Security Officer to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who was accused of handling all postings in the DSS instead of the Directorate of Security Enforcement.

“We make bold to say that Jackson Ude displayed his ignorance of the workings of both the presidency and the Department of State Services in this claim. Managing the security of a nation’s President is not the same thing as managing the security of the Chairman of a social club. Securing the President of a country, not the least a big country like Nigeria, is a full-time job that demands round-the-clock attention and an allegation such as was made by Jackson Ude is also capable of distracting the CSO whose task of protecting his principal could be jeopardized. Issues about intelligence agencies are treated with caution to avoid distractions.”

The NBI advised Nigerians to ignore the spurious allegations designed to distract from the compelling issues of economic recovery facing the present government and called on those behind the spurious allegations to identify worthier issues that would lead to national unity and nation-building.