- Fayose urged President Bola Tinubu to curb the excesses of the DSS
- He said operatives of the DSS involved in the free-for-all with their counterpart should be made to face justice
A former governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose has bemoaned the undemocratic actions of the Department of State Services.
Recall that DSS operatives and Nigeria Correctional Services had a slugfest after the arraignment of former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Godwin Emefiele at the Federal High Court in Lagos on Tuesday.
The court had granted Emefiele N20 million bail but the DSS said they would not obey the order of the court as they had received an order from above to return Emefiele to their facility.
Pandemonium broke out after the masked and gun-toting DSS officials blocked warders from the federal penitentiary from taking the embattled CBN chief to prison.
In the ensuing scuffle, an official of the prison authority was manhandled and assaulted by the DSS. Journalists and bystanders had to scamper for safety as the situation became tensed.
Reacting to the development, Fayose urged President Bola Tinubu to curb the excesses of the DSS.
He said operatives of the DSS involved in the free-for-all with their counterpart should be made to face justice.
He noted that the action of the DSS would portray Tinubu’s administration in bad light, hence the erring operatives should be dwelt with.
Tweeting, Fayose wrote: “The DSS act of lawlessness at the Federal High Court, Ikoyi, Lagos today, should be condemned by all lovers of democracy and rule of law in the country.
“It is painful that the DSS is yet to come to terms with the fact that the President of Nigeria today, is a product of struggles for democracy and won’t superintend over any act of lawlessness.
“The actions of the DSS today, is no doubt bringing a negative image to the government and I’m sure that President Tinubu will act swiftly to curb their excesses so that they don’t give his government a bad name just as they did to the immediate past government. This is a function of failed or power drunk leadership in the DSS. It’s time for the President to act.
“No doubt, I am not a fan of Emefiele’s actions as CBN Governor which threw Nigerians into untold hardships with the politically motivated change of Naira notes. However, it behoves on leaders of this country to speak out against acts capable of undermining democracy and rule of law.
“Nigeria is under civil authority and security agencies, especially the DSS should be properly guided to purge themselves of this display of overzealousness.
“The DSS men that participated in today’s show of shame should be promptly brought to book. More so that it happened within the sacred premises of the court.
“Most importantly, restructuring of the Organization is imperative for a today Nigeria that is desirous of deepening democratic governance.”