On The SSS Detentions

By Suleiman A. Suleiman

Nigeria’s security and intelligence agencies – Army, Navy, Air Force, police, Department of State Services (DSS), and National Intelligence Agency (NIA) – are all struggling to have a grasp of their place, their identity, within our ongoing democratic system. They all had an assured past in the stable dictatorship of the colonialists or military era (in the case of DSS and NIA).

But now, nearly a quarter century into democratic government, they are all unable to reinvent themselves to properly suit the demands of a system based on accountability. The doctrine, training, and the political behaviour of these agencies have scarcely changed from the originals that were forged under colonial or military dictatorships.

Some, like the Prisons Service and the DSS, have had a change of name but hardly any change in mind, attitude or behaviour. To grasp this fully, we need to look in the direction of their use of force, and in their relationship with each other and to the state.

As I write, nearly all guns in the Nigerian Army’s armoury are pointed, not at any external enemies, but at Nigerians right here on Nigerian soil, all in the name of fighting one or other forms of so-called “non-state actors”. The Nigerian Navy knows about only one job now: fighting local oil thieves and bunkerers. The Air Force regularly rains down fire on citizens at will, without as much as an apology, or even admission it happened, however unintentionally. Not even during military government were our soldiers this much involved in civil life as they are today. “Insecurity” alone cannot explain this. As for the rest, like the police and the DSS, as well as the so-called “para-military” forces that do not normally bear arms, their disrespect for the lives and limbs of Nigerians is better imagined.

Where our security forces are not snarling down at Nigerians for the purposes of control rather than protection, they are busy barking at each other in rather trivial turf battles, or doing the political bidding of the men and women in power at the moment. Who can count the number of times soldiers, policemen and DSS operatives have engaged in open skirmishes against one another, sometimes involving the exchange of gunfire and death of personnel? Nor can we count how many times the police, DSS and even soldiers have been deployed directly or indirectly to do political battles on behalf of presidents, governors, or others. And this is not to mention the countless times one agency would usurp the functions of the another, just to stay in the good books of power or to curry favours at its feet.

All of these, for me, are signs that our security forces cannot come to terms with a constitutional order in which the Nigerian citizen has rights that must be respected by the state and its agents, and where any use of force must be in accordance with the law.

It is within this context that I am getting uneasy about the increasing number of detentions of politically exposed persons by the Department of State Services (DSS) over the past month: first Emefiele, then Bawa, and now Yari. Who will be next and where will it stop?

I do not hold brief for anyone, and even insist that all who have a case to answer must do so. But I am concerned about two things in all these. First, all three men in detention have not been publicly charged with any offence. All the public knows as justifications for their arrest and detention by the DSS are that it is for “some investigative reasons” in the case of Emefiele, and “some investigative activities concerning him” in the case of Bawa.

As for Yari, who has now been released, it is that Yari himself knows the reasons for his “invitation” as the DSS put it; never mind that there was scarcely any official response for days following his arrest.

It is not clear whether Emefiele’s arrest and detention are part of previous allegations of “sponsoring terrorism” levelled against him by the DSS months ago or if there are new ones. But that is part of what we are getting at: Nigerians must know for what charges and allegations that a suspended governor of the central bank, a suspended head of an anti-corruption agency, and a sitting senator of the federal republic are held in detention for a few days. That knowing publicly is part of the demands of a democratic order.

And I think we all should be getting uneasy and concerned that the DSS will just pick up people, all of them politically exposed, and detain them for days or weeks without charge. Whatever their actual offences, our democracy does not admit to the indefinite detention of persons without some legal backing.

The DSS, we know, has a court order in the case of Emefiele, and a judge is ruling on an application for his release later this week. As we, respectfully, wait for the court, we must all note that a court order in one case cannot be transferred to other cases, however similar they may be.

The DSS cannot continue to depend on court orders to conduct investigations into crime. One single charge of a serious wrongdoing is enough to head to court. As the legal activist Femi Falana said last week, without prejudice to the case in court, the DSS risks violating provisions of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act by its continuing detentions, and we all should worry about that.

And it is here that I arrive at my destination in this article today. I am not comfortable with the politics, optical or factual, of these increasing detentions. Yari had just come out of political fisticuffs with President Tinubu over National Assembly leadership. That much is in public knowledge. And suddenly he’s in detention of the secret police.

Most Nigerians also believe that both Bawa and Emefiele were in some ways involved in that botched naira redesign policy, that threw the whole country into suffering of the highest proportions, but which then-presidential candidate Tinubu openly said was designed to hurt his chances in the election. That means, the president had also lately been in some other kind of political fisticuffs with Emefiele and Bawa, at least, in the perception of many Nigerians.

My whole point, then, is that it does not look for democratic politics, and certainly not for the present government, that men with who he’s been in a political fight find themselves in DSS detention soon enough for days and weeks. It does not look good for the democratic credentials of the DSS either. Moreover, the loud silence from across the political and civil society spaces that pervades these detentions is also concerning, even dangerous. Yari may have been released, but the negative optics remain.

I wrote scathingly against the naira redesign policy on these very pages. I wrote even more critically against Emefiele. I even called for his resignation or removal from office, for actions he took that I believe were unbecoming of his office. I still stand by that position today. But for the sake of our democracy, for the democratic integrity of the DSS itself, all men in detention must be speedily investigated and charged to court to answer allegations against them.