The State Security Service (SSS) has, through its Director-General, Yusuf Bichi, declared that the Service is hunting down Nigerians holding divergent views against President Muhammed Buhari’s Administration, noting that most of those who pronounced anti-government postures during the day renounce such claims behind-the-scene, especially when confronted by the Service, the People Gazzette has reported.
The SSS stated this in a statement released in Abuja on Sunday in what many political observers now considered as corroborating the Administration’s concerted effort to suppress the opposing voices
In the statement, the SSS says
Recently, the Service invited and cautioned some persons who deniably recounted (sic) their earlier statements or said they were quoted out of context. The public should be wary of such individuals and their co-travellers who, incite them in the open but, turn in the secret to retrieve their words after they had caused the damage.”
Recall that the SSS has been hunting down vocal critics of Mr Buhari. The hunted includes journalists and many innocent Nigerians whose offence was speaking up against the mis-governance of the Administration. According to People Gazzette, among them is Agba Jalingo, who in the name of the national security, has been threatened into submission. Many other individuals have been “invited” for interrogation by the agency and left to languish in “underground cells”
Also last week, a politician and scholar, Usman Bugaje, was held by the state agents after his appearance on an AIT program, where he criticised the Administration poor handling of the insecurity in the country, among other things.
The same could also be said of Salihu Tanko-Yakasai, an aide to the Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, who was last February arrested for criticizing President Buhari on Twitter over the abduction of Zamfara schoolgirls.
In the urge of the SSS to forge ahead with this kind of behaviour, the Service has issued a stern warning for individuals in the country to guard against making inflammatory statements against the government.
The Service stated further:
It is unfortunate that those in the forefront of this are respectable individuals who should be patriotic and not allow their personal ambitions to ruin the nation.
It accused political and religious elites who make comments without weighing the influence to desist from doing so, as such would be considered as plots to disintegrate the country.
It added:
“The service has also noted their desperation and penchant to collaborate with external forces and influences against Nigeria,”
“They are reminded that even though democracy offers free speech, it does not give room to reckless pronouncements capable of undermining security.
