•Condemns exemption from mass sack, demands probe DSS affairs since 2018

A civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), on Thursday asked President Bola Tinubu to act boldly and sack the Director-General of the Department of State Services (DSS), Yusuf Bichi, in line with the President’s action firing all Service Chiefs and heads of security agencies.

HURIWA, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, described as discriminatory, unfair, unjust, irrational and unacceptable, the decision of the President to spare 67-year-old Bichi.

The group said the DSS, since Bichi’s appointment as the secret police boss in September 2018 by former President Muhammadu Buhari, has been given to impunity, dictatorial styles typical of the military, disregard for due process, midnight Gestapo and bloody raids, as well as flagrant contravention of court orders.

HURIWA asked the President to order a comprehensive probe into the DSS activities under Bichi after sacking him, saying that he must answer for alleged crimes against humanity, including alleged bloody killings of innocent citizens in their homes as had happened during their raid in the Yoruba nation chieftain's Ibadan residence.

HURIWA said the DSS urgently needed reforms and total overhaul because the goal of democracy was both hollow and defeated when state agents serially take the law into their own hands.

In October 2022, a Federal High Court in Umuahia ordered the release of separatist agitator, Nnamdi Kanu, the secret police ignored the order. An Appeal Court sitting in Abuja also ordered the release of Kanu but the DSS won’t obey the order.

In August 2019, the agency invaded the residence of activist Omoyele Sowore, arrested and detained him for leading the #RevolutionNow protests. He was not released until December 2019 despite being granted bail by different courts which also declared the clampdown on his group as illegal.

Also, in July 2021, the DSS, in a Gestapo style, carried out a bloody midnight raid on the Ibadan residence of Yoruba Nation agitator, Sunday Adeyemo, also known as Sunday Igboho, killing two of his aides.

According to HURIWA, “The DSS knack for midnight raids and disregard for court orders, including the continuous detention of the leader of Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, under Bichi, is alarming.

“The failure of President Bola Tinubu to sack the DG, DSS when he sacked others of his colleagues is discriminatory, unfair, unjust, irrational and unacceptable because the negativity of the other disreputable office holders affected all heads of security institutions under former President Muhammadu Buhari.

“It is still unthinkable why the DG DSS is still allowed to remain in office. Could it be that Bichi is being used to witch-hunt political opponents or adversaries of Tinubu like Bawa of EFCC, Emefiele, etc? This is unacceptable and amounts to apartheid and selective dismissal. The President should overhaul the security apparatus of the country once and not spare any sacred cow.”

The President had on Monday sacked all service chiefs and appointed new ones but Bichi survived the shake-up and his son had since gone online to boast about this.

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