The Department of State Services (DSS) says it raided the homes of some judges across the country over allegations of corruption levelled against them.
The agency said it it found $2million stashed in the house of one of the judges.
Speaking to journalists at a news conference at the DSS headquarters in Abuja on Saturday, Garba Abdullahi, an agent of the service, said the secret police had been monitoring the lifestyle of some judges, and that it was determined to bring sanity to the judiciary.
“The DSS, in the past few days, has embarked on a series of special sting operations involving some judges of the supreme, appeal and high courts,” Abdullahi said.
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“These operations were based on allegations of corruption and other acts of professional misconduct by a few suspected judges. The service is in line with its core mandate, as we have been monitoring the expensive and luxurious lifestyle of some of the judges as well as complaints from the concerned public over judgment obtained fraudulently and on the basis amounts of money paid.
“The judges involved were invited, upon which due diligence was exhibited and their premises searched. The searches have uncovered huge raw cash of various denominations, local and foreign currencies with real estate worth several millions of naira and documents affirming unholy acts by these judges.
“Meanwhile, some of them have made useful statements while a few have declined even with the glaring evidences that were found against them in terms of material cash, documents and property recovered pointing to their compromise.”
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Abdullahi alleged that $2m was stashed in the house of one of the judges.
“In one of the states where the service operations were conducted, credible intelligence revealed that the judge had $2m stashed in his house,” he said.
“When he was approached for due search to be conducted, he, in concert with the state governor, mobilised thugs against the service team. The team restrained itself in the face of unbridled provocative activities by those brought in by the governor. Unfortunately, the judge and the governor also engaged the tacit support of a sister security agency.
“The service surveillance team noticed that upon frustrating the operation, the judge, with the active support of the governor craftily moved the money to an unknown location, which the service is currently making effort to unravel.”
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The DSS agent gave a breakdown of the money recovered from three of the suspects as N93.558m, $530, 087, 25, 970 pounds and 5, 680 euros.
However, he said that Walter Onnoghen, a supreme court justice, and chief justice of Nigeria designate, was not being investigated.
“The service would want to clearly state that it has never invited Justice Walter Nkanu Onnoghen for investigation, neither is he being investigated by the service.”
At the end of the briefing, the DSS agent refused to take questions from journalists.
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7 comments
Good job indeed! If there is nothing to hide, why will they refuse to take questions from journalist? When will these people stop taking us for a ride? if you have concrete evidence against these people, why not charge them to court of competent jurisdiction or report them to Judicial Council? Why the choice of pages of newspapers for their trials? Why is it that they are termed “corrupt” only when they are not dancing to the tune of Mr President? One of the “corrupt” Judges whose house was raided at an ungodly hour of 1am has been speaking against the impunity and flagrant disregard for the rule of law on the part of the security agency clamping down on him, concerning the pronouncement of the court over somebody in their custody. Could this be the reason why he suddenly becomes a suspect?
Why I would gladly support any move to rid our Nation of corrupt practices and also want anyone involved in corruption to be tried and brought to book; the “holier than thou” attitude of Mr President and his think tank is totally unacceptable. Someone was accused of being mentioned on certain page of Halliburton scandal. She was also accused of avoiding going to the US for that purpose. APC came out to tell the whole world she had visited US and presented papers in two US Universities. She never did! Nothing to show that she visited on the Web page of the Universities she supposedly visited and the picture posted could not have been taken at any of the airports in the US. There was also no media coverage (local or international. Not even our own NTA!). The women concerned does NOT enjoy any kind of immunity under Nigeria constitution. Yet, no security agency deem it fit to invite her (or go to her if she is considered too big to be invited) for questioning. All those who are not dancing to the tune of Mr President are the ones they are going after.
The danger in clamping down on opposition and dissenting voices is that if this trend is not curbed, sooner than later, there won’t be any opposition again. This is extremely dangerous for our democracy.
News was all over when the person in questioned paid visit to USA except you are looking elsewhere in order to have reasons for your unfounded aligation. I know people like you will fault all or any steps taking by this administration to fight corruptions. There is God o o o.
why is it that some people are fond of pointing accusing fingers to president Buhari,when somethings they do not like happened? you better pray to God to give our president Buhari the wisdom to fight corruption.do not allow political , religious and ethnic sentiments to deceive you.
Bareface concocted lies by DDS, with their usual planting of incriminating material in other to give the dog a bad name.
Shame to this janjaweed government. This is still a tip of the iceberg for worse things to come
Once cases can be adjudicated on pages of newspapers and once we have DSS EFCC and ICPC I think nigeria doesnt need courts of law and judges again
They were not able to gain access to the house of the judge in Rivers, yet they knew $2million dollars was stashed there, all this nonsense seem like witch-hunt to me.
Your comment..The DSS is doing a good job. It is only corrupt and enemies of Nigeria who will criticize what the DSS is doing right now. The NBA has thrown its credibility into the garbage by stamping corruption.