The Department of State Services (DSS) has claimed that convener of the Revolution Now movement, Omoyele Sowore, has been using his phone in its custody to make calls to mobilize people and call for violence against the federal government.
Peter Afunanya, the public Relations Officer of the DSS, made this known in Abuja on Tuesday, November 19, alleging that personnel of the Service have also received death threats from various quarters over Sowore’s detention.
He said: “There is nothing that Sowore needs that we do not provide him. He has been using his phone and making contacts and even using it to mobilize people and call for violence and call for action against the Nigerian state, and call for destruction of the Nigerian entity. When you throw a stone in the market place, you sure would not know on whose head it would land.
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“Sowore has family members in Nigeria who go to local markets, he has relatives. He has uncles and sisters. If you set a fire, of course, you may not know who will get the burns.
“The stand of the Director-General (Yusuf Bichi) and the stand of the Service is not ambiguous about respect for justice, for rule of law and for human rights. There is no division, no doubt that in unison, the entire staff of the service would always pursue what is good for Nigeria and what is good for her unity and progress and stability.
“We have to carry out our duties and would continue to do so in honour and good conscience despite deliberate efforts to harass and intimidate us. The issue of human right in the last week, the custody of suspects and all of that have been in the front burner.
“Rather what some experienced persons, people who ordinarily should be respected, came out to say that some people came and did not see us, and we said this and that.
“That is not true. Miscreants, protesters and some people who were not parties, unqualified to stand and document properly and take responsibility that Sowore had been released to them, those were the kinds of person we saw. So they were not the appropriate persons and by every argument of good conscience, is it the right thing for us to have released Sowore to a mob? People who came and acted unruly and were fighting and forcing themselves into the facility.
“And that brings us to the issue of using guns on them. No gun was used on any person. The DSS is a very responsible organization and discharges its duties with utmost responsibility and accountability. We have standard operating procedures on the use of arms. So our staff couldn’t have used guns on any person.
“These people were not the kinds of persons that should have come forward. We have continued to receive various threats on our officers and personnel on how they would be mauled down on then streets, how they would be physically attacked.
“Sowore people, people who believed that they can harass security officer, intimidate them, sending messages to their phones and threatening that they would kill them and give them treatment they would live to regret.
“Mind you this is not personal. We are doing a job that we must do. The institution of security services or law enforcement must exist for the good of the nation, otherwise, you can imagine what the situation or the environment would be.