SINCE last week’s declaration by the Department of State Services (DSS) that some members of the political class were plotting an interim government to truncate the smooth handing over of power by President Muhammadu Buhari,
whose tenure expires on May 29, tensions have heightened in the polity, with political parties and public commentators exchanging brickbats over the issue. According to the DSS spokesman, Peter Afunanya, the plotters of the ‘interim government’ had already held several meetings during which they weighed many options to actualise their plan, including sponsoring endless mass protests across Nigerian cities and securing a warrant to declare a state of emergency or an injunction to stop the inauguration of the executive and the legislature at the federal and state levels, thereby plunging the coun try into an avoidable crisis.
Afunanya added: “DSS considers the plot being pursued by these entrenched interests as not only an aberration but a mischievous way to set aside the Constitution and undermine civil rule as well as plunge the country into an avoidable crisis. The illegality is totally unacceptable in a democracy and to peace-loving Nigerians. This is even more so that the machination is taking place after the peaceful conduct of the elections in most parts of the country. DSS supports the President and Commander-in-Chief in his avowed commitment to a hitch-free handover and will assiduously work in this direction. It also supports the Presidential Transition Council and such other related bodies in the states. It will collaborate with them and sister security and law enforcement agencies to ensure seamless inaugurations come May 29.”
To be sure, the currency enjoyed by the DSS alarm is largely influenced by the outcome of the 2023 polls and its reception by political actors. If truly some individuals are plotting to trigger crisis with the ultimate aim of truncating the country’s hard-won civil rule, Nigerians would be well within their rights to ask for the immediate prosecution of such individuals. Indeed, we are categorically opposed to any move to return the Country to the dark era of interim governance. However, the DSS, which claimed to have been able to identify the ring leaders of the plot, has taken no action on them till now. The agency, by virtue of the law establishing it, is required to operate based on intelligence and to act decisively on useful and credible information bordering on state security without undermining the fundamental rights of the citizens. In effect, it cannot act based on frivolous engagements or based on the whims and caprices of politicians. Otherwise, it will be seen to be crying wolf where there is none and heating up the already charged political environment.
Nigerians must be certainly mystified, if not intrigued, by the fact that the secret service spoke of a plot without providing any proof. If anything, the gravity of the alleged offence, which amount to treasonable felony, should have dictated an entirely different course of action. If the agency had credible and sufficient evidence of a treasonable plot, what it ought to have done was to arrest and interrogate the plotters preparatory to prosecuting them in a court of competent jurisdiction.
Its case is also not helped by the fact that there have been occasions when it invaded places like the National Assembly and set the polity on edge without being able to prove that any crime had been committed.
The DSS statement sounds curious and reeks more of a hot chase leading nowhere. There is nothing to be gained from warning people about its readiness to prevent their committing crime when the whole essence of its duty is to help the country, through strategic intelligence gathering, to curb criminal activities by acting decisively against the planners.
Is it the DSS’s business to “strongly warn those orga-nising to thwart democracy in the country” to desist from their devious schemes or to go after them?
In any case, we hope the DSS is not going to abridge the rights of Nigerians to justify its alarm knowing full well that it is only the court of law that can pronounce the guilt of anyone accused of a crime.
The agency must insulate itself from partisanship at all times because of its strategic role in protecting the sovereignty of the Nigerian State. And rather than continuing with alarming statements, it should take steps to arrest those it suspects and knows are planning criminal activities and charge them to court, so that the court can in turn act on the evidence presented. This is the way to really show that it is focused on its mandate to help prevent and stop the commission of crime in the country.
