APC slams SSS for linking party with Boko Haram, to sue Marilyn Ogar

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has condemned the thinly-veiled attempt by the Directorate of State Services (DSS), alias SSS, to link the party with the insurgent group Boko Haram, without providing a shred of evidence to that effect, and called on the agency's spokesperson Marilyn Ogar to resign or be fired.

In a statement issued in Ilorin on Saturday by its National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, the party also said it has decided to sue Ms. Ogar for attempting to blame the APC for the series of bomb blasts in the country, to give her the opportunity to present whatever evidence she may have of the APC 's complicity in a court of law.

It said the DSS threw caution to the wind and exhibited its crass partisanship when the agency's spokesperson, Ogar, said on national television that anytime the APC wins an election, there is no bomb blast, but that whenever other parties win, there is always a bomb blast.

"That this incredulous accusation could be made by the spokesperson of a security agency, without providing a scintilla of evidence to support such claim, has confirmed our fears that the nation's security agencies have now constituted themselves into the enforcement arm of the PDP.

"For the DSS Spokesperson to echo the same capricious statement that has been made in the past by the spokesman of the PDP shows that the agency has dropped its toga of non-partisanship and has descended into the political fray. If the DSS has any professional ethics, if DSS is not an arm of the PDP, then the agency must publicly
dissociate itself from the irresponsible and unfounded allegation by Ogar and disengage her from the service.

"Doing that will be the first step in restoring the credibility, or whatever is left of it, of the DSS. In the alternative, we challenge the DSS to present to Nigerians any evidence it may have linking our party to the spate of bomb blasts in the country. After all, it is trite that he who alleges must prove," the APC said.

The party said since the APC won the election in Osun, Ogar has been struggling hard to discredit the party and its victory, including making a spurious allegation that the party offered the DSS 14 million naira as bribe and also tried to make a joke of the arrest of the party's spokesman, Lai Mohammed, for no other reason than that he belongs to the opposition.

"Institutions of state like the DSS must know that their responsibility is to the nation, not to any political party that may be having a transient hold on power, that their loyalty is to the nation, not to any individual. This way, the institutions will keep their integrity intact and also serve the nation properly.

"Irrespective of the government in power, institutions of state must stay above the fray, in line with best practices.

"This is a lesson that should not be hard for the fellows over there at the DSS to understand, going by the antecedents of their agency. However, where they choose to play politics with their professionalism and integrity, they will soon realize they are working in an agency that is not worth its salt, one that has lost the respect of the citizenry," it said.

The APC called on the National Assembly to invite the Director-General of the DSS to explain if Ogar's partisan stance represents the official position of the service on the spate of bomb blasts in the country; if indeed 14 billion Naira was offered as a bribe to the DSS and by who; and why the DSS has chosen to descend to the political fray at the expense of its professionalism and national loyalty.