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| DG SSS, Lawal Daura |
President Muhammadu Buhari, reportedly unhappy with the work of the
Department of State Services (DSS) after a team of lawyers reviewed the
evidence gathered from the agency’s recent raid on judges suspected of
corruption, has ordered that the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC) take over the matter.
The decision is said to have followed weeks of reviewing the evidence
assembled by DSS, as well as the statements made by the judges
involved. The president is said to be insisting that the investigations
must be more professionally handled.
Sources say that the review of the case files, the
delay in filing charges against the judges, and the shoddiness of the
performance of DSS gave some of the judges the opportunity to start
recanting their statements and twisting the facts of their cases.
A Presidency source said the President, as well as the office of the
Vice President which also reviewed the cases, decided that multi-agency
collaboration was needed to strengthen the cases before they go to
court.
The DSS was initially mandated to work with the EFCC to do thorough
investigations before a raid was carried out, but sources told
SaharaReporters that due to intra-agency rivalry, the DSS refused to
hand over case information to the EFCC and hid their plans from the
anti-corruption agency, preferring to work with the Nigeria police.
Police officers invited on the raid, in turn, leaked the plans to the
judges involved. In the case of Rivers State, for instance, the police
tipped off the state Governor, Nyeson Wike, who then mobilized, with
the support of the state Commissioner of Police, to personally stop the
arrest of a federal judge.
Another reason adduced for the action of the DSS was said to be the
desire by the Director-General of the agency, Lawal Daura, to warm
himself into the heart of the President.
President Buhari has now ordered him to work with the EFCC and ensure
that future investigations are properly done. Given the size of the
anti-corruption challenge, however, it is unclear if, in the absence of
outright rebukes or personnel changes, the President’s scheme might not
be subverted.
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PLEASE BE POLITE