The Citizens Stability Forum (CSF) a civil society and citizen’s groups coalition calls on the security agencies in Nigeria to act on intelligence provided by the Department of State Services (DSS) in containing the security threats bedevilling the country.
The current insecurity happenings in Nigeria have exposed the lack of collaboration and synergy between security agencies in the country. The most disturbing aspect been the continuous disregard to security intelligence provided by the Department of State Services (DSS) to the Military, Police and Paramilitary security agencies, something that in some countries can be treated as treasonable offence.
The Department of State Services (DSS) is one of the most important arms of Nigeria’s security setup saddled with critical functions of prevention and detection of any crime/terrorism against the internal security of Nigeria and provision of timely advice to Government on all matters of National security interest among others.
This function has made the DSS the fulcrum of intelligence gathering and sharing among sister security agencies. As such when there is inefficiency in collaboration or a lack of synergy with other security agencies the result will be that criminals and terrorist will be having a field day and will be pulling up acts of terrorism that will otherwise be impossible for them. One may then question what is the problem? Why is the collaboration and co-operation between the security agencies this ineffective and who is at fault and responsible for this? To answer these questions, one needs to understand the role that each agency needs to play in this security co-operation. The roles are clearly defined by Nigeria’s constitution, that DSS are responsible for security (of all sort) intelligence gathering and sharing this intelligence with relevant sister agencies while the role the other agencies is to act on such intelligence.
Based on all relevant evidence and happenings in the country,it is very clear that the DSS has been playing its role diligently and have been feeding the relevant agencies with intelligence before the occurrence on most of the unfortunate insecurity events that recently occurred. For example, before the Bombing, shooting and Kidnapping incident on the Abuja-Kaduna Train on the 28th of March 2022, the DSS issued a security alert about the suspicious movements and activities of terrorist elements in the vicinity of the rail lines between Rijana and Kateri to both the Military and police as well as the Nigerian Railway Corporation. Unfortunately, the disregard to such critical intelligence by relevant authorities led to the loss of lives of eight (8) Nigerian citizens, forty-one (41) hospitalised and over sixty (60) civilians kidnapped by terrorist. Likewise, before the terrorist attack on Kuje Prison on the 5th of July 2022 where they succeeded in releasing their fellow colleagues. It is on record that the DSS shared 44 intelligence reports relating to this threat with relevant agencies before the attack on the prison. This has been proved by remarks from the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Idris Wase who stated that he has went through the report, but unfortunately the relevant agencies failed to act. These are just among the few proofs that found their way to public domain as DSS does not flaunt its operations and activities to the public, rather most operations and activities are classified, and as is the norm for State and Secrete Service departments all over the world.
A lot of the success and ability of the DSS to meet up with its own security responsibility is down to the excellent leadership from the DSS hierarchy led by Director-General of the DSS, Mr. Yusuf Bichi. The DG has instilled commitment, diligence, and pro-activeness in tackling insecurity across the county. Mr Bichi has also vigorously drive improvement in welfare and wellbeing of personnel including improved and frequent payment of allowances, more investment in infrastructure in commands and formations across the country, as well as providing officers and operatives with more training and re-training opportunities. These are all geared towards creating a conducive working environment and increasing the efficiency of the workforce. As a result, DSS personnel have shown increased professionalism, discipline and loyalty in carrying out their duties. Of late, strong remarks and proofs that security personnel from various military and paramilitary agencies are highly involved in crude oil bunkering in the Niger Delta has been very disappointing to Nigerians. Among all these security agencies it is only personnel of the Department of State Services (DSS) that are mentioned to be part of this dirty and treasonable acts. This was backed by remarks from the biggest and most experience pipeline private security contractor i.e., Government Ekpemupolo A.K.A Tompolo who stated that only the DSS can be exonerated from the sabotage by some security personnel in stealing Nigeria’s resources by promoting bunkering activities. The professionalism of the DSS led by Mr Bichi has been nothing but excellent, for example the threat issued by the USA and Britain Embassies recently was long gathered and issued to the relevant authorities by the DSS in a more professional manner without causing any form of panic and the Service has since then been working behind the scenes to nip the possible threat in the bud. The DG of the DSS is more concerned and interested in achieving results and not craving for undue publicity.
One will wonder then, if the DSS is able to meet of its responsibilities and perform excellently, then why are the other relevant agencies failing? The answer to this is that it entirely points to the lack of willing leadership in these agencies. To fix this, the buck falls on the table of the President of Nigeria Muhammadu Buhari. So many heads of security agencies have gotten away with negligence and disregard to rule of law and it is his responsibility to ensure that decisive action is taken against any security agency and its hierarchy that are found wanting and neglecting intelligence. To secure this country the security agencies must work collectively together, and it is the responsibility of the Presidency to ensure that.
It is also important to point out that such disregard of intelligence by other relevant security agencies is likely contributed to reason why the United States and its allies including the UK and Canada are wary of sharing intelligence with Nigeria, thus leading to the recent wrong and unfortunate situation of going to the public with terror alert. Decision to avert such from happening again must be taken by the Presidency and it is highly imperative that the DSS is promoted and empowered to engage through diplomatic channels with foreign missions and their intelligence to work together to provide the DSS with security intelligence and avoid foreign mission from releasing terror alerts to the public.
It is clear that the public commendation and appreciation of the DSS is important to the confidence and motivation of its personnel as they work tirelessly to keep Nigeria safe. And it will be encouraging that Nigerian’s continue to support the DSS and other security agencies as we battle through these security challenges.
