The Department of State Security (DSS) has released a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kogi state, Ibrahim Safiu who was arrested by the secret police in October 2022.
Safiu was released on Monday by the DSS, Sahara Reporters confirmed.
According to his lawyer, F. S. Jimba, the DSS released him “after they did investigation and discovered that he was not linked to the alleged offence.”
Recall that his arrest at Trademore Estate Lugbe in Abuja, became a subject that threw the PDP in a scuffle with the Kogi State Government.
The Party had accused the state government of masterminding what it described as “an abduction of a recent defector from the All Progressives Congress.”
The Party, in a statementby the PDP Presidential Election Management Committee, signed by its Spokesperson, Faruk Adejoh-Audu, explained that the defector, Safiu was abducted at his residence at Trademore Estate, Lugbe-Abuja road by gunmen outfitted in military camouflage and alleged to be led by one Naval officer, Charles, said to be working with a Special Navy Squad positioned at the residence of Governor Yahaya Bello in Okene.
Meanwhile, the Kogi State Government on its part, called on heads of security agencies in Nigeria to invite the Senatorial candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the central senatorial district of the state, Mrs Natasha Akpoti Uduaghan, for questioning over alleged terrorism-related activities capable of dragging the state back to “the dark era”.
Kingsley Fanwo, the State Commissioner for Information and Communications, in a statement said it was “ worrisome for the PDP that Natasha represents to come out openly to identify with Safiu, a terror suspect that is linked to the bloody attack on a church in Owo that led to the death of scores of worshippers. He is also linked to the dastardly attack on the Kuje Correctional Center as well as military formations within and outside of Kogi State.
“It was a thing of relief to the people of Kogi Central that security agencies were able to apprehend their Chief Tormentor. Criminality doesn’t know political party. A criminal is a criminal and should be treated as such,” Fanwo said.
In a video that went viral, the wife of Safiu accused the DSS of being used by the governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, and denying the family access to the suspect.
She also said despite being pregnant, the DSS personnel that broke into their house, assaulted her, a development that made her lost her unborn child.
But, in a swift reaction to the allegations, the spokesperson of the DSS, Dr. Peter Afunanya, said: “she is either playing to the gallery or deliberately lying. It is not to my knowledge that she was denied access at the agency’s gate.”
He further stated that? “the DSS does not deny anyone access to its facility or suspects once the criteria for such access are met. There are processes/procedures in this regard. It is also very unfortunate that the lady is dragging the Service into the Kogi State local politics.
“She knows very well that the husband was not picked as a result of Kogi politics as she has desperately tried to link us with or make the public believe.
“We encourage her to desist from using fake news, hate speech, hostile activism, misleading narratives and other instruments of disinformation against the Service or to curry unnecessary public sympathy. She knows her husband and the circumstances of his arrest which was procedurally done. And he was not the only person so arrested the time he was. She should, please, stop the sensations and the mischief to drag us into Kogi politics.”
