The continuous attack by terrorist groups recorded in the country has been blamed on disregard to DSS Intelligence by the military, police and other security agencies in the country, exposing the lack of collaboration and synergy between security agencies in the country.
The Citizens Stability Forum (CSF), a civil society and citizen’s groups coalition made the observation on Sunday in a press release signed by Muktar Lawal Lead Convener and John Azi Co-Convener, issued to news men in Kano.
According to the group, the most disturbing aspect been the continuous disregard to security intelligence provided by the Department of State Services (DSS) in some countries can be treated as treasonable offence.
“The Department of State Services (DSS) is one of the most important arms of Nigeria’s security setup saddled with critical functions of prevention and detection of any crime/terrorism against the internal security of Nigeria and provision of timely advice to Government on all matters of National security interest among others.
“This function has made the DSS the fulcrum of intelligence gathering and sharing among sister security agencies.
As such when there is inefficiency in collaboration or a lack of synergy with other security agencies the result will be that criminals and terrorist will be having a field day and will be pulling up acts of terrorism that will otherwise be impossible for them”, they added.
The group stated that, based on all relevant evidence and happenings in the country, it is very clear that the DSS has been playing its role diligently and have been feeding the relevant agencies with intelligence before the occurrence of most of the unfortunate insecurity events that recently occurred in the country.
To butteres it’s point, CSF, cited the Bombing, shooting and Kidnapping incident on the Abuja-Kaduna Train where on the 28th of March 2022, the DSS issued a security alert about the suspicious movements and activities of terrorist elements in the vicinity of the rail lines between Rijana and Kateri to both the Military and police as well as the Nigerian Railway Corporation.
But unfortunately, the disregard to such critical intelligence by relevant authorities led to the loss of lives of eight (8) Nigerian citizens, forty-one (41) hospitalized and over sixty (60) civilians kidnapped by the terrorists.
Likewise, that before the terrorist attack on Kuje Prison on the 5th of July 2022 where they succeeded in releasing their colleagues, it is on record that the DSS shared 44 intelligence reports relating to this threat with relevant agencies before
the attack on the prison.
This, they said, has been proved by remarks from the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Idris Wase who stated that he personally went through the reports, but unfortunately the relevant agencies failed to act.
The Group applauded the Director-General of the Service, Mr. Yusuf Bichi for putting in place, mechanisms that has helped the DSS to meet up with its own security responsibilities while ensuring the welfare of it’s officers as a result, the personnel have shown increased professionalism, discipline and loyalty in carrying out their duties.
Furthermore, that one will wonder then, if the DSS is able to meet of its responsibilities and perform excellently, why then are the other relevant agencies failing?
“The answer to this is that, it entirely points to the lack of willingness by leadership in these agencies to fix this, the buck falls on the table of the President of Nigeria Muhammadu Buhari.
They calls on the security agencies in the country to always act on intelligence provided by the Department of State Services (DSS) in containing the security threats bedevilling the country.