The Presidential Support Committee (PSC) has condemned the barrage of criticisms and protests against the Department of State Services (DSS) over the continued detention of the convener of #RevolutionNow protest, Mr. Omoyele Sowore, saying politicising the secret police “is dangerous for the country’s security system.”
The group’s reaction followed Saturday’s protest by some activists at the headquarters of the DSS in Abuja, demanding the release of Sowore and Olawale Bakare.
In a statement issued on Sunday by its director of communication and strategic planning, Malam Gidado Ibrahim, the Committee urged the protesters to allow the security agency do its job “within the ambit of the law instead of coercing it with politically stage-managed protest.”
It noted that the DSS director-general, Yusuf Magaji Bichi, “is a law-abiding citizen, and under him, the agency has maintained the highest regard for the laws of the land and would not do anything to undermine law and order.”
The statement read in part, “The PSC has noted with dismay the confrontational manner in which some self-appointed activists are harassing the Department of State Services in the name of protest over the convener of #RevolutionNow protest, Mr. Omoyele Sowore. It amounts to playing politics with the country’s security system to lay siege on DSS in a bid to secure Sowore’s release.
“Curiously, the protest came barely 24 hours after the DSS had told the public that it received the court order asking it to release Sowore, but nobody has turned up at its office to take delivery of him. The DSS stated categorically that this was imperative for reasons of accountability.
“With such a public notice coming from the DSS, it amounts to gross politicisation of the country’s security for some self-acclaimed activists to picket the office of the DSS. Instead of staging some sponsored protest, they should allow the law to take its cause.”
