DSS as a national institution cannot be partisan
The State Security Services (SSS), also known as the Department of State Services (DSS), is the primary domestic intelligence agency of Nigeria. The mandate of the SSS is to protect and defend the Federal Republic of Nigeria against domestic threats, to espouse and enforce the criminal laws of Nigeria, and to provide leadership and criminal justice services to both federal and state law-enforcement organs. Also, the SSS is charged with the protection of the President, Vice president, Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives, State Governors, their immediate families, other high ranking government officials, past presidents and their spouses, President, and visiting foreign heads of state and government, among others. In fact, the SSS has adapted to various functions necessitated by evolving security threats in Nigeria including counter-terrorism and counter-insurgent.
No doubt, the agency over the years has plausibly been successful in performing its primary internal security tasks. In its early days, the agency was credited with the arrest of the Egyptian bomber Omar Mohammed Ali Rezaq in 1993 while he was trying to enter Nigeria through the Nigeria-Benin republic border. Rezaq was declared wanted by the United States for leading the bombing of an EgyptAir plane for the Abu Nidal group in 1985. Similarly, in October 2010, the SSS was reported to have intercepted a large cache of arms and ammunition originating from Iran at the Apapa port in Lagos; this is in spite of a UN arms embargo on Iran. The agency has also been reported to have permeated several religious extremist groups in the country including the Boko Haram sect as well as some successes in combating kidnapping in Nigeria with the arrest of some kidnappers and the rescue of their victims.
On the other hand, the agency has been severally accused of stifling the political activities of opposition groups; public meetings are arbitrarily cancelled or prevented, including cultural events, academic conferences, and human rights meetings. For example, on 25 September 1997, police and SSS agents broke up a Human Rights Africa (HRA) seminar for students in Jos, arrested HARA director Tunji Abayomi and 4 others, and briefly detained some 70 students. Abayomi and the others were held for 10 days and then released on bail. Furthermore, a May Day 1998 workshop on conflict management in Port Harcourt was cancelled when the SSS warned local coordinators that such a meeting could not be held on Workers Day, a local holiday. However, similar workshops elsewhere proceeded unimpeded despite the holiday.
Only recently, the All Progressives Congress (APC) accused the DSS of partisanship. The party condemned the selective accusation of its National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed in Osun State during the August 9 election, while Ogar refused to complain about the presence of the Minister of State for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro, and others in the state during the same period. The party questioned basis for her alarm over the presence of Mohammed, when in the same fellow closed her eyes to the presence of Obanikoro, Chris Uba and the likes in the same state.
We believe that the DSS may have certain security information that may warrant them to act in a manner that may seem unacceptable to the public. However, there are professional and ethical codes of conduct for staff of the public service which must strictly be adhered to always. According to technocrats, it is wrong for a public servant to issues a statement that could be reasonably interpreted as endorsing or opposing a political party’s stand on any issue. Thus, Marilyn Ogar’s engagement of war of words in reaction to Mohammed over Ekiti election is unacceptable from a spokesperson of a national institution; while the DSS show of partisanship is a disservice to the agency.