A national nightmare

Segun Gbadegesin

State Security Service (SSS), aka Department of State Services (DSS), is a dreadful national nightmare. It earns this ignoble distinction alongside other security agencies. Two pertinent questions follow: What have we done to deserve this? What can we do about it?

You could probably make sense of the strong-willed obsession of SSS with high handedness in a military regime. After all, the agency received its domestic intelligence-gathering mandate in the dark days of the military and could count on its absolute support against the interest of “bloody civilians”. But how does it fit in a democracy in which civilians are supposedly the indispensable stakeholders with the power of the ballot?

It turns out that civilians have always had an overrated assessment of their power. At least, since 1999, DSS has not changed a bit as it has consistently proved itself a lover of AGIP, aka Any Government in Power. For at least two reasons, this should normally be a concern to political power holders.

First is the obvious fact that what goes around comes around.  It always has. As I will remind us shortly, the present deriders, mockers and chief complainants against DSS excesses were once the chief supporters of the agency. By the same token, those who would now see no evil or hear no evil were once the most vocal objectors against the high-handedness of DSS. At best, then, many members of the political class have simply resigned themselves to the operational consistency of DSS in favoring any government in power, or at worst, they are simply hypocrites.

Second, however, we are facing a crisis which is far greater than what individual political actors decide to think or belief. Equally, it is far more serious than what strength of character politicians decide to exhibit. It goes to the root of what we are as a constitutional republic founded on the rule of law which must determine our national security priorities and legitimize policy choices for their actualization.

As we may recall, National Security Organization (NSO), the predecessor of SSS, was dissolved by the Babangida regime in 1986 when it had become a liability on government credibility, especially on the crucial issue of human rights. As one of the three emerging agencies, SSS was mandated to protect and defend the Federal Republic of Nigeria against domestic threats to security and to enforce the criminal laws. SSS is also responsible for protecting the President, his Vice, the leadership of the National Assembly, and governors, etc.

Now, from the preceding paragraph, we may infer two closely related mandates: protecting and defending the Federal Republic of Nigeria and protecting the President and other elected officials. Presumably, some might choose to see the two functions as not just closely related but as identical. The president is the constitutionally recognized leader of government and, therefore, the face of the republic in and outside the country. Therefore, an agency with the mandate of the DSS might consider the President as identical with the republic.

But he is not; because the president is not a king, but an elected leader who can be rejected at the polls. Since 1999, DSS, like other security agencies, including the Police, has unfortunately identified any incumbent with the State, and has done whatever it could to demonstrate its fealty to him, as if to the republic itself, and to see every opposing candidate as a pest to be extricated or a threat to be stopped.

If we focus our sight to just the emergence of a strong two-party system since 2014, we have witnessed the frightening partisanship of the main internal security agency. In 2014, DSS in Osogbo arrested APC spokesman and two others in “Gestapo Style”. In 2014, after his suspension as CBN Governor, Mallam (now Emir) Lamido Sanusi was arrested by the SSS and his international passport seized because he was alleged to be aiding terrorists. He filed a suit against the agency and the court dismissed the charges and his passport was returned.

Accusing the party of planning to clone INEC voting cards, more than 40 armed DSS officers raided APC Data Center in Lagos in November 2014 and arrested some staff of the center. It repeated the raid on December 2. Through its then spokesman, APC cried foul, complaining that “the lack of respect for a court order by an institution of state like the DSS has plumbed the depth of anomie, and shows that our democracy is in clear and present danger from anarchists.”  It further accused the DSS of acting “like an enforcement arm of the ruling party by constantly harassing the opposition.” That was five years ago this month. Instructively, the detained APC staff won victory at the court which ordered their release on the ground that no citizen can be detained for more than 48 hours without being charged to court.

Now, has DSS changed since APC became the ruling party? Of course not. One of the first acts of impunity by the agency was the raid on the homes and arrest of some judicial officers in 2016. This was on the allegation that these judges, some of whom the National Judicial Council (NJC) had suspended from office and recommended to the President for dismissal, were guilty of corrupt practices.

The NJC is the constitutional authority for the appointment and disciplining of judicial officers. DSS is expected to go through the Council with any concerns it receives from the public or from its own findings. and NJC is to investigate. In this case, however, DSS decided to act on its own, raiding and arresting the judicial officers.

In a release, NJC viewed the action as a threat to the independence of the judiciary, while it explained the actions it took on reports that it received prior to the invasions, including suspension and recommendations of affected judges for dismissal. It insisted that NJC had never shielded any judicial officer who committed a misconduct and protested the action of DSS as “a denigration of the entire Judiciary, as an institution.”

Perhaps the most blatant display of brutal force by the agency was its August 2018 invasion of the National Assembly when it barricaded the entrance gates and shut out members of NASS. The action was against the backdrop of power struggle between APC and PDP lawmakers and the fear of impeachment of the leadership who had just decamped to PDP. Though APC denied any prior knowledge of the incident, PDP wasn’t convinced.

Acting President Yemi Osinbajo sacked the Director of SSS, Mallam Daura, and promised to deal with other security personnel involved with the “unauthorized takeover of the NASS” which he described as “a gross violation of constitutional order, rule of law and all accepted notions of law and order.” As I observed in a column at the time, it was a different time. By acting to distance the Presidency from the excesses of the DSS, Prof Osinbajo sought to renew the confidence of citizens in the institutional order of democratic governance.

But subsequent developments have given us pause, and the constitution-driven gesture has not lasted long enough as the Sowore case has apparently demonstrated. The facts of the case are not obscure. A former presidential candidate ran his mouth, calling for revolution now. And there is pictorial evidence that he met with IPOB leader Kanu. And yes, he bragged that he wasn’t going to be silenced even after he was released on bail. Do all these justify indefinite detention? Can’t our judicial system be trusted to handle this? Why lionize a harmless gnat? And is APC, the progressive party of our dream now in cahoots with DSS? It is a sickening thought! Somebody please let my friends in the trenches fighting Abacha DSS understand my distress!

Reflecting on DSS invasion of APC’s Data Center in 2015, a former governor and party leader had an idea. He reportedly recommended restructuring security agencies, including DSS. Upon victory, APC would place the agencies on First Line charge, and make their directorship positions term-bound so that only an agreement between the President and Senate can remove them from office. It’s about time!