SSS Reasons For Invasion Of Party’s Lagos Data Centre Is Nonsense – APC

Posted by African Examiner Featured, News, Politics Monday, November 24th, 2014

By Ayo Balogun

The opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) has described as plainly implausible and a witless afterthought the reasons adduced by the Directorate of State Services (DSS) for invading its Lagos Data Centre last Saturday, declaring the security outfit a “shameless apologist” of the ruling PDP

APC’s declaration was made Monday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, at a press conference in Lagos.

The party stated it wondered why a self-respecting intelligence gathering secret would rely on beer parlous gossips in carrying out its onerous responsibility, especially in a politically-charged environment like Nigeria, at present.

”The spokesperson for the DSS said the organization had put the building housing the Data Centre under surveillance and that it only acted after it was convinced that ‘unwholesome activities’ were taking place. What hogwash! If indeed they put the place under surveillance, would they not have been able to establish that it is an APC Data Centre? Even if they were not sure, what prevents them from obtaining a court order permitting them to enter and search the building instead of carrying out a Gestapo-like operation? Are security agencies above the law?

”To highlight their crudity and lack of professionalism, they had to go and arrest one of the staffers who was not on duty just to get the password to the servers they vandalized and took away. This speaks volumes about the limitation of the DSS’ intelligence gathering ability. If they had broken into the Boko Haram computer, would they have gone to arrest Abubakar Shekau or any of his commanders to give them the password to it? Nigerians can now see why no progress has been made in using intelligence gathering to root out the evil Boko Haram,” it said.

The opposition held that far from the concocted lies by the DSS, which has now become one of the enforcement arms of the PDP, the real reasons it alleged the service broke into the offices of the party were to deprive it of its membership data base so it can no longer contact its members and also to aid and abet the rigging of the 2015 elections by the PDP.

”With the membership data base now in their possession, it has become easy for them to collude with INEC to know which areas we are strong so they can scuttle the distribution of the Permanent Voters Cards there and, during the elections, to also deprive such areas of voting materials.

Meanwhile, the party said it has been forced to suspend its membership registration following the damage done to the equipment at its Data Centre in Lagos during the invasion by the DSS and the NAVY.

”The viciousness and barbarism of the attack on the Data Centre and the arrest of 26 innocent workers, which put a lie to the DSS claim, have disrupted and corrupted the continuous offline and online membership registration across the country.

”The over 50 security men who invaded our offices not only vandalized the offices, they pulled out and carted away the Server and computer systems. Their activities have therefore affected the process of online/offline registration and data capture of APC members across the country, hence we are left with no choice than to suspend the process,” the party informed.

In the meantime, APC has reiterated its earlier call for an independent inquiry into the invasion, which has taken the impunity of the Jonathan administration to its worst level yet, with a view to determining the identity of those who sent the invading force and meting out the necessary punishment to them, irrespective of their political status.

”It is important to get to the bottom of this unprecedented action in the political history of our nation, especially as it might have compromised the 2015 general elections.

APC therefore called on all Nigerians as well as the country’s international partners to condemn the primitive action.