A group known as the Nation Building Imperatives (NBI) has cautioned against the dangers of politicising and belittling the nation’s security apparatuses, warning that such would not bode well with the efforts to bind the country together and ensure internal and external security.
The group made the call against the backdrop of what it described as wild and unfounded allegations against the Director General of the Department of State Services (DSS) and advised against impugning the integrity of the nation’s secret service in exchange for political profits.
In a statement signed by the national coordinator of the group, Dagogo Henshaw, and public affairs officer, Danjuma Mwantok, NBI said there were efforts to create some form of tension and disaffection among the various secret service agencies, notably the Department of State Services (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, advised Nigerians to work towards the preservation of the reputation of the DSS as secret police in the overall interest of the country.
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On the allegations made by Ude that the DSS 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 DG of DSS can’t 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 queried.
“The facts about the salaries and welfare of the staff of the Department of State Services 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 on 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.”
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On the allegation that Bichi’s wife was working with Folashade Tinubu-Ojo, the 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.
“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.”
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