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The All Progressives Congress on Tuesday raised the alarm that the Department of State Service was pushing the nation towards anarchy with the second raid on the party’s data centre in Ikeja, Lagos on Monday night.
According to the party, it is the height of lawlessness and an orchestrated provocation by the service to carry out a second raid on its facility.
It described the service as an out-of-control agency which should be cautioned.
The National Publicity Secretary of the party, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said this in a statement in Abuja.
He said, “‘The raid by over 40 armed DSS officers, despite a court order restraining the service from such action, shows that the DSS considers itself to be above the laws of the land, and this is totally condemnable.
“Even under a PDP government that has nothing but contempt for constitutional order, the lack of respect for a court order by an institution of state like the DSS has plumbed the depth of anomie, and shows that our democracy is in clear and present danger from anarchists.”
The APC said the 40 armed DSS officers, who came with trucks, shoved the security personnel at the building aside and broke into the storage facility from where they carted away over 30 bags filled with the APC membership registration forms.
The party said the raid came on the same day it challenged the DSS to make public its findings after the first raid that was widely condemned within and outside Nigeria, and described as the worst political scandal in the nation’s history.
“It is sensible to conclude that the DSS’ second raid was its own crude reaction to the challenge we posed to it. Apparently yet to find any evidence of PVC cloning as alleged by the DSS, it is now quite desperate to manufacture evidence to justify its raids,” the party said.
Mohammed wondered how else one could explain the claim by the service that its ‘findings’ would shock Nigerians, even at a time it was still in search of evidence.
“Is this how self-respecting intelligence agencies conduct their operations,?” the party spokesman asked.
He said it was curious that an institution of the state would continue to act like an enforcement arm of the ruling party by constantly harassing the opposition.
The party also said it was strange that an organisation that should be deploying its best members of staff to gather useful intelligence that could help the nation to win the anti-terrorism war was instead engaging in terrorising the opposition.
It reminded those at the helms of affairs that while they might “be having a free rein today, they will one day rue their actions at this critical time in our nation’s history.”
The APC said it was particularly alarming that the DSS carried out its raid despite the November 26, 2014 order by Justice Mohammed Yunusa of the Federal High Court in Lagos, restraining the DSS from further sealing off the data centre or taking further steps in connection with the property.
The party said the moment Nigerians could no longer seek redress in court, just because the law enforcement agencies had elevated themselves above the law, the country could as well bid a goodbye to constitutional order.
It blamed the prevailing atmosphere of lawlessness in the country on the culture of impunity that he said had become institutionalised under the government of President Goodluck Jonathan.
Source: The Punch
