DSS and citizen Saheed Eyitayo

While we all keep our eyes on petrol pumps following last week’s fuel price hike, another evil is stalking the land without getting the critical attention it deserves. The Department of State Services (DSS) also known as State Security Service (SSS) has been baring its fangs and throwing its weight around without anybody calling the agency to order.

By the way I love the way some foreign media call the SSS ‘secret police’ as that is what it has become in discharging its duties. No one knows what it does except when we see the results of its actions. While we are all too familiar with the agency’s recent history under the immediate past head, Ita Ekpenyong, as exemplified by the distasteful conduct of the spokesperson then, Marilyn Ogar, its actions currently bear striking resemblance to the precursor, National Security Organisation (NSO) under the dreaded Mohammed Lawal Rafindadi.

The former ambassador led the NSO from January 1984 to August 1985 when President Muhhammadu Buhari was the head of state. This historical background is necessary so that we can understand the institutional ethos of the NSO and SSS. The SSS operates as a department within the presidency and is under the control of the National Security Adviser, currently Babagana Monguno, a retired army general whom President Buhari appointed on July 13, 2015.

This background is necessary since the organisation reports to the president and while there have been one or two briefings with the national assembly in camera; it is doubtful if the legislators have oversight function on the agency. Its staff and budget are classified information.

Let’s even ignore the SSS serial disobedience of court orders as seen in the trials of former NSA, Ibrahim Dasuki; and Nnamdi Kanu of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), the case that prompted this piece actually resulted in extra-judicial killing of an accused person. When I say we should ignore disobedience of court orders, it should not be seen as support for flagrant affront on the rule of law but in the context that those ones have not, so far, led to deaths of the accused persons. But knowing that the mission of the SSS “is to protect and defend the Federal Republic of Nigeria against domestic threats, to uphold and enforce the criminal laws of Nigeria, and to provide leadership and criminal justice services to both federal and state law-enforcement organs” which gives it a wide latitude of operation and one deserving scrutiny. This is after offering protection to the president, vice president, senate president, speaker of the House of Representatives, state governors, and their families.

As reported by an online newspaper, which insofar as I can tell remains the only newspaper to report the saga, SSS operatives arrested and tortured a young man, Saheed Eyitayo, to death in their custody. Eyitayo was arrested in a commando-like raid on April 4 at 37 Aje Street, Pleasure, Iyana Ipaja, Lagos when about 25 armed men with assault rifles stormed the house, according to eyewitnesses. Interestingly, Eyitayo was guilty by association as the main accused person is actually Rilwanu Jamiu, accused of cloning the phone number of the Lagos State governor, Akinwunmi Ambode. Jamiu’s wife was the one who led the SSS men to Eyitayo’s house after they stormed Jamiu’s house too. The wife led them to Eyitayo’s house in a manhunt for her husband and it was the third house they visited. After arresting Eyitayo and bundling him like a criminal and without telling other residents of the house who they were, the landlord was invited three days after by the SSS. He has been having high blood pressure since then as he and his tenants thought the SSS men were armed robbers.

The SSS waited 19 days, yes 19 good days, before informing the family of Eyitayo of his death. Bizarrely, he was never interrogated and neither was his statement taken before torturing him to death. The SSS Lagos State director, Adekunle Ajanaku, and his men should be thoroughly investigated on how exactly Eyitayo died in their hands. One wonders if this should not have actually been a matter for the police to investigate even though the force too has its own history of extrajudicial killings. For one Eyitayo’s case that we know, how many more are dying in SSS cells across the land? The Lagos State government has been progressive in her actions especially in instances of death in the hands of security agents, would she continue in this line and set up a coroner’s inquest into Eyitayo’s death? It was citizen Eyitayo last month; it could be anyone the next time.