Shehu Sani asks Seiyefa to free ‘hostages’ held by DSS

Shehu Sani, senator representing Kaduna central, has asked Matthew Seiyefa, acting director-general of the Department of State Services (DSS), to release those “illegally” held in custody of the service.

Many Nigerians were arrested and detained when Lawal Daura was the head of the secret police.

Among them are

• Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), who has been in custody since 2015. He was arrested when IMN members, also known as Shi’ites, clashed with Nigerian soldiers in Zaria, Kaduna state.
• Sambo Dasuki, former national security adviser (NSA), who was arrested in 2015 for “illegal possession of firearms” and alleged diversion of $2.1 billion from his office while he held sway as the NSA.
• Jones Abri, a journalist, who until recently, has been in DSS custody since 2016, without trial or access to his lawyer.

Writing via his Twitter handle on Friday, Sani said anyone being held in custody against court orders is no longer a detainee but a “hostage”.

“The urgency of now is for the new spy master to use ‘the key of the law’ and open up the Gulag,” he wrote.

He added that a court order is to be obeyed being “the constitutional order from above.”