Following the arrest of some judges of the Supreme, Appeal and High Courts by operatives of the Department of State Services, DSS, the security agency has explained the reason behind its move.
The DSS explained that the arrests were made in connection with investigations which revealed that the judges possess huge sums of raw cash at home and own other luxury and choice properties.
The explanation is contained in a statement signed by Abdullahi Garba and released by the agency explaining that the sting operation was carried out based on allegations of corruption and other acts of professional misconduct by the arrested judges.
The DSS in its statement noted that “The Service action is in line with its core mandate, as we have been monitoring the expensive and luxurious lifestyle of some of the judges as well as complaints from the concerned public over judgment obtained fraudulently and on the basis amounts of money paid.”
The statement further explained that the suspected judges were invited for interrogation following which their properties were searched. The DSS during the search however found huge sum of cash in the judges’ homes, both in local and foreign currencies.
“In one of the states where the Service operations were conducted, credible intelligence revealed that the judge had $2million stashed in his house. When he was approached for due search to be conducted, he, in concert, with the state governor, mobilized thugs against the Service team. The team restrained itself in the face of unbridled provocative activities by those brought in by the Governor. Unfortunately, the judge and governor also engaged the tacit support of a sister security agency.”
The DSS further claimed that its surveillance team discovered upon frustrating the efforts of the judge and state governor along with their armed men from a sister security agency moved the said cash to an unknown location which it has promised to unravel.
The statement gave a breakdown of the cash recovered to include: N93.6million, $530,087, £25,970 and €5,680 which were all allegedly recovered from three judges.
The DSS also revealed that other foreign currencies along with bank documents and real estate documents were also recovered.