Tuesday, January 28, 2014 8:46:37 AM
The State Security Service (SSS), also known as the Department of State Services (DSS), is the primary domestic intelligence agency of Nigeria. It is primarily responsible for intelligence gathering within the country and for the protection of senior government officials, particularly the President and state governors. It is one of three successor organisations to the National Security Organization (NSO), dissolved in 1986. The SSS operates as a department within the presidency and is under the control of the National Security Adviser.
As you can see, the SSS is not useful to the masses but the President and State Governors et al. It is often used as a machinery of vendetta by the Presidency because it is not independent. The SSS has always being a State Security Bully and we wonder why the legislature has not bothered to allow an alternative security agency that will not have ‘aprons’ attached to the state and federal governments e.g., a National Security Agency as soon as possible in order to curb the menace of the SSS.
Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, the former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja was recently ‘blackmailed’ by the SSS until he gave himself up at the SSS office accompanied by Rivers State Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, Senator Chris Ngige, lawyer Bamidele Aturu and his family. El-Rufaiwas later released after interrogation. Initially, he said he would not grant the SSS invitation because of his pending case with the notorious security organisation. Later, the SSS went to his house to arrest him but did not meet him at home.
The SSS does not like El-Rufai’s remarks in the social media but has never found worse comments made by friends and supporters of President Goodluck Jonathan offensive especially when the likes of Alhaji Mujaheed Dokubo-Asari and Ms Annkio Briggs made infuriating statements that there would be no peace but a battle in 2015 if Jonathan does not win the presidential election. When will the SSS interrogate Asari and Briggs? Your guess is as good as ours!
The SSS should stop bullying El-Rufai in favour of the Presidency because it is not his fault that he is more intelligent than the President. Why is freedom of speech only extended to pro-government people? Every comment El-Rufai makes should not be regarded as ‘offensive’ simply because El-Rufai is not in the PDP camp but the interim deputy national secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC). He has been interrogated by the SSS too often, to the extent that the SSS became a ‘nuisance’ to him. The SSS is a coward that cannot go after terrorists because it prefers to bully innocent people. Nevertheless, there are some SSS officials who are not part of the vendetta plot; they are the few that we regard as our ‘friends’ as per the slogan ‘the police is your friend’.
Ready for interrogation!
