APC Challenges DSS To Provide Evidence On Alleged Link To Boko Haram

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines Saturday, August 16th, 2014

Again the All Progressives Congress (APC) has descended heavily on the Directorate of Security Service (DSS) as it condemns the agency’s attempt to link it with dreaded Boko Haram without evidence.

APC Interim Spokesperson, Lai Mohammed

In a statement issued in Ilorin on Saturday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party which demanded for DSS’s Spokesperson, Marilyn Ogar to resign or be fired, stated it has decided to sue her (Ogar) for attempting to blame APC for the series of bomb blasts in the country to give her the opportunity to present whatever evidence she may have against APC ‘s complicity in a court of law.

The party accused DSS of throwing caution to the wind and exhibiting its “crass partisanship” when its Publicist made a television announcement, alleging that anytime the country’s leading opposition wins election, there would be no blast, but the country experiences otherwise, whenever other parties win.

”That this incredulous accusation could be made by the spokesperson of a security agency, without providing a scintilla of evidence to support such claim, has confirmed our fears that the nation’s security agencies have now constituted themselves into the enforcement arm of the PDP”, the party indicts.

APC challenged that if DSS was not an arm of the ruling party,it must publicly dissociate itself from the “irresponsible and unfounded allegation by Ogar” and disengage her from the service.

”Doing that will be the first step in restoring the credibility, or whatever is left of it, (DSS). In the alternative, we challenge the DSS to present to Nigerians any evidence it may have linking our party to the spate of bomb blasts in the country. After all, it is trite that he who alleges must prove,” APC insisted.

Alhaji Mohammed recalled that since declaration of APC as the winner of last Saturday Osun state governorship election, Ogar has been pre – occupied with attempts to discredit the party and its victory, citing alleged N14 million financial inducement of DSS officilas by it, as well as an attempt to make non sense of his arrest on the eve of the election.

”Institutions of state like the DSS must know that their responsibility is to the nation, not to any political party that may be having a transient hold on power, that their loyalty is to the nation, not to any individual. This way, the institutions will keep their integrity intact and also serve the nation properly. Irrespective of the government in power, institutions of state must stay above the fray, in line with best practices”, it stressed.

APC reasoned that where officers of a state institution like DSS choose to play politics with their professionalism and integrity, they will soon realize they were working in an agency that was not “worth its salt, one that has lost the respect of the citizenry”.

Consequently, the party has called on the National Assembly to summon the agency’s Director-General and ask him to explain if Ogar’s partisan recent stance represents its official position on the bribery and blast allegations.