By Louis Achi
Probably for curious reasons, some seemingly recalcitrant tendencies or stakeholders are not ready or willing to acknowledge or concede that some key, positive changes are being birthed in the operational modus of Nigeria’s primary domestic intelligence agency – the Department of State Services, aka DSS – an agency which plays a critical role in national security and intelligence gathering.
DSS’ main responsibilities include counter-intelligence, medical intelligence, economic intelligence, internal security, counter-terrorism, and surveillance as well as investigating some other types of serious crimes against the state. But there is a flip side to the global history of this important government agency – which many may be blissfully unaware of.
In many climes, the secret police engage in covert operations against a government’s political, ideological, or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations characterise authoritarian and totalitarian regimes.
Often – and with good reason – in several parts of the world, the secret police is described as central to totalitarian regimes and an indispensable device for the consolidation of power, neutralization of the opposition, and construction of a single-party state.
Because secret police typically act with great discretionary powers, arbitrary detention, abduction and forced disappearance, torture, and assassination are all tools it deploys to prevent, investigate, or punish real or imagined opposition.
But the good news is that the foregoing does not characterise Nigeria’s Department of State Service, DSS, particularly, under the administration of the service’s new Director-General, Adeola Oluwatosin Ajayi. It also does not describe the governance modus of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration.
It is against this pertinent backdrop that the difficult work of the DSS to rein in disruptive, unsalutary plots, in a difficult national period, can best be situated and fairly deconstructed. Some examples of recent skirmishes with organisations and individuals will serve to illustrate the new restrained footing of the DSS in adroitly managing disruptive tendencies – deploying civil options in its vast statutory ‘arsenal’ – instead of relapsing into the old monster mode.
A case in point is the ongoing and very interesting N5.5 billion lawsuit slammed by the DSS against one civil society organization (CSO) Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP). The CSO had in early September issued a statement accusing the DSS of raiding it’s Abuja offices.
Before Tosin Ajayi took over as the DSS DG, it was not uncommon to find citizens and CSOs get away with levelling all manner of allegations against the secret police.
However, a hint that it won’t be business as usual emerged after an Abuja-based online newspaper, OrderPaper, ran a story alleging that DSS officers invaded the National Assembly with a view to stopping senators from impeaching Senate President Godswill Akpabio.
It would seem OrderPaper forgot the invasion of the National Assembly by DSS officers had on August 12, 2018, led to the sack of the then DG, Alhaji Lawal Daura, by acting President, Yemi Osinbajo.
By the time OrderPaper realized it’s mistake, it seemed a little too late. The secret police promptly sued OrderPaper publishers and its reporters. However, following the intervention of well-meaning stakeholders in the media industry, and an apology by OrderPaper, the DSS reciprocated by dropping the charges.
Fast forward to SERAP. Following the CSO’s statement that the DSS raided it’s Abuja office, the secret police responded by faulting SERAP’s account of the visit. The DSS affirmed that SERAP was aware the visit by two of its officers was “routine,” and that the CSO’s narrative was skewed to paint the security agency in bad light. In any case the DSS clarified that had it intended to raid SERAP’s office, it would have sent scores of gun-wielding officers, and not just two unarmed operatives.
Even when it appeared that SERAP’s statement on the alleged raid was fraught with inaccuracies and inconsistencies, the CSO still stuck to its guns, refusing to admit it was wrong. The CSO appeared unfazed by a letter from the DSS’ lawyers, demanding an apology from SERAP.
When the legal fireworks began in court, the first sign that SERAP’s defence might have punctured SERAP’s invasion claim came from its statement of defence.
“One of the two DSS officials who entered SERAP’s office signed the visitor’s book as ‘Sarah David’ and not ‘Sarah John’ as constituted in this suit. A photocopy of the extract from the visitor’s book showing that the official hid her true identity when she entered SERAP’s premises is hereby pleaded and shall be relied upon during trial,” noted SERAP’s counsels
Tayo Oyetibo, SAN and Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, SAN.
The fact that SERAP admitted to offering the DSS officers they claimed ‘invaded” their office the courtesy of signing their visitor’s book, noted one legal mind close to the CSO, greatly hurt their claim that the DSS officers indeed invaded their office.
Another drama played out at the resumed hearing of the matter on November 29. The CSO, which had all the years addressed itself as SERAP, dramatically told the stunned court led by the presiding judge, Justice Yusuf Halilu, that it no longer was SERAP, but ‘Registered Incorporated Trustees of SERAP.”
But describing the new move as a ploy to apply technicality to keep dragging the case in court, a lawyer who witnessed the entire drama, said SERAP appeared to be uncomfortable complying with the rule of substantial justice, which it has been calling others to abide by but instead, it has now resorted to technicalities.
According to the lawyer, SERAP, in all their statements, had maintained the word “SERAP.” He wondered aloud why the CSO was now resorting to ‘Registered Incorporated Trustees of SERAP.”
“Basically, it is assessed that it is doing so to evade justice. It is ironic that SERAP, an advocate for accountability, does not want to account for its actions, ” noted the lawyer, however, adding, “in accordance with the rules, parties were directed to file all preliminary arguments for consideration on 10th February 2025.
Aside SERAP, the DSS appears to have its sight set on Khalid Aminu. An engineer by training, Aminu was arrested alongside many others in the wake of the August #Endbadgovernance protests in Northern Nigeria.
After being let off the hook, Aminu featured on a television station where he alleged that while in the custody of the secret police, their officers brutalized and tortured him to no end. Interestingly, Aminu appears to be the only person among the several detainees who was allegedly tortured by DSS officers.
Shortly after his television appearance, some persons who said they shared the same DSS detention facility with him, contradicted his allegation. There was no time any of them, Aminu inclusive, was brutalized by any officer of the DSS. They told journalists in Kaduna that Aminu may have fabricated the story to attract public sympathy or for other personal gains.
Apparently sure it didn’t dehumanize Aminu or any protester in its custody, the secret police has handed the engineer a seven-day ultimatum to retract his allegation and tender a public apology – or it will activate the civil option of seeking legal redress for deliberate injury to its reputation.
The threat of legal action was contained in pre-action notice dated November 25, 2024 titled: “Re: Allegation of torture by Department of State Security Services official while undertaking custody in Kaduna: A Call For Retraction,” signed by Mohammed Ndanusa SAN. Having failed to retract the publication, the DSS has since sued Khalid Aminu.
According to one senior lawyer, “we are human and this is what makes us fallible; however, when we fall or make such mistakes, what counts is that we admit such errors, plead for forgiveness, and move on.”
He cited the case of a prominent human rights activist, Deji Adeyanju, who last week publicly apologized for allegedly defaming the acting National Chairman and the acting National Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Amb. Umar Damagun, and Senator Samuel Anyanwu, stressing, “Deji apologized and the heavens didn’t fall.”
These skirmishes and more capture the essence of an emerging DSS which now appears focused on executing its mandate within the ambits of the law. That the DSS has refused to yield to the temptation to wield its enormous powers like a medieval cudgel – despite prickly provocations by fairly enlightened stakeholders, is commendable.
Several human rights organizations attribute this paradigm shift and resort to civility by the DSS to the August 28, 2024, appointment of Tosin Ajayi as the new helmsman.
On assuming office, Ajayi delivered a subtle, cadenced message to the agency he has impactfully served for nearly 35 years. He pledged to “refocus the service towards covertness and likelihood of studied silence over certain matters.”
Cut to the bone, the unassuming Ajayi had simply told his workers that he is returning the agency to the stealth mode of operations, the fundamental bedrock of secret policing. In effect, Ajayi has, expectedly, introduced fresh perspectives and strategies, particularly in enhancing internal security and addressing both current and emerging threats.
Wait for it: he hit the ground sprinting, bringing his over three decades of experience in intelligence gathering and security management to his new role. Perhaps not surprisingly, the emerging consensus is that the appointment of Ajayi as the DG DSS has marked a quiet but significant turning point in the ongoing fight against terrorism, banditry, kidnapping and secessionist agitations across the country.
Many citizens now believe that genuine efforts to incept a new Nigeria, especially in a very challenging period, should not be derailed, wittingly or unwittingly, by selfish forces which revel in chaos and mischief.