- Afunnaya said that those picked up are being investigated.
- He assured that their arrest was not a targeted attempt on Polish nationals.
The Department of State Services (DSS) has launched an investigation into the activities of seven Polish citizens who were recently apprehended in Kano.
The protests, tagged #EndBadGovernance, have seen young Nigerians take to the streets to express their discontent with the current state of affairs in the country.
In a surprising twist, some protesters in Kano were seen waving Russian flags and calling on President Vladimir Putin to intervene in Nigeria’s situation.
The DSS is now probing the involvement of the Polish nationals in these protests, particularly their connection to the Russian flags and the call for foreign intervention.
On Saturday, another group of protesters in Jos, the Plateau capital, were seen with Russian and Japanese flags.
On August 5, some protesters were seen holding Russian flags near the Nyanya bridge, a suburb in Abuja.
The trend has elicited reactions on whether the protesters in northern Nigeria are being influenced by foreign elements.
The DSS said its operatives have apprehended some tailors sewing Russian flags for #EndBadGovernance protesters in Kano on August 5.
The Russian embassy in Nigeria has denied any involvement in the flying of its national flags during the #EndBadGovernance nationwide protest.
On Wednesday, Peter Afunanya, the DSS spokesperson, spoke at a meeting with the diplomatic corps, hosted by Yusuf Tugar, minister of foreign affairs.
Afunnaya said that the Polish nationals were arrested for displaying foreign flags in the north-west region.
Afunanya said that their detention was based on location-specific security concerns, not a targeted action against Polish citizens.
“For the persons we have picked up from Kano because of where they were found during the protest and display of the foreign flag in Kano that was two days ago and as a responsible security organisation we owe it an obligation to do some verification and ascertain basic reasons and circumstances for some cases,” he said.
“They were picked as a result of security enforcement because of where they were when the incident happened. It is not a targeted operation on behalf of my Director General DSS and Nigeria.
“As the foremost domestic security organisation, we believe we have to work in sync with all of you who are men and county of goodwill and our operations must be governed by democratic principles and protocol that emphasises freedom and human rights and of course intelligence and security governance we obey all of this whether we are dealing with Nigerians or foreigners.
“But we have a plea, in the cause of the discharge of our duty we will also see that some Nigerians definitely would want to use foreign lands as a lunch pad to attack domestic peace and stability, we plead that you do not offer your country to some person who may be deviance or have a terrorist inclination in today’s global pursuit if anything happened in a country it affects the others. Nigeria is a country with a large population and I believe that the support other countries will give will help us.”