Anyakwee Nsirimovu is the executive director of Port Harcourt-based Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. He told KELVIN EBIRI that insinuation of high-handed approach by the Department of State Security (DSS) during its search of the residence of former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd) is misplaced.

With DSS invasion of former National Security Adviser, Dasuki’s home, are we back to the dark days of security agents’ intimidation?
FROM the human rights and legal point of view, I think the act was legal and appropriate. It was primarily based on court warrant obtained to search the house of Dasuki, and knowing full well that the DSS is an internal security agency, whose objective is to ensure that the internal security of this country is not threatened or compromised. They wanted to search his premises with a court search warrant. I don’t know what the hullabaloo is all about.

No matter his position, which was given to him by society, Dasuki should be treated like any other citizen, and due process was applied. So, I don’t see why anybody should be crying foul over that.

The fact that the warrant was obtained and presented to him, he should have actually allowed them to quietly search his premises rather than raise the alarm that he did. As far as I am concerned, it was propaganda to garner favour.

Irrespective of the court warrant, isn’t the DSS being used as a tool for witch hunting?
Of course not. The question is this, is there any reason whatsoever to have the gentleman investigated? Look at the situation we are in this country, where thousands of Nigerians are being killed in the Northeast. Dasuki has been the head of security, advising the president and liaising closely with the security outfits; often, they take instruction from him, and overtime during the last administration, we have seen situations where army barracks were bombed and soldiers were defenseless.

We had issues about equipment to fight insurgency. We had soldiers deserting and behaving unprofessionally. We also had our girls abducted, and till date, we still have no access to them. We had soldiers fighting, as if they were in a foreign land and not in our own country. We had military generals behave in unprofessional manner and we also had an Australian, who was engaged by the previous government, laying grievous allegation against military officials at the time. And at the end, no serious success was recorded in the fight against insurgency.

I don’t believe that the DSS has no serious reason to investigate Dasuki and the DSS action should not translate to vendetta or witch hunting, which is now commonly used in this country to blackmail the system. And let me also say that we are living in an abnormal time, when serious, stringent action must be taken to ensure that the majority of people in this country are protected and no one man should become an impediment to that. If this kind of action is going to help the security agents solve the problem of insecurity we are facing, why not?

Crying foul is unfounded. If the DSS had gone there without a search warrant, then we should be talking about his right to privacy and other fundamental human rights such as, freedom of movement was violated. As a citizen of this country under the constitution, he has all the rights, but he should also be available for security scrutiny. Nobody is above the law.

Again, it is a message to all of us, that if you go contrary to the law, you will be picked up and investigated. If they find him wanting he will go through due process. It is not the DSS that will adjudicate on the matter. But for now, they want to investigate him. You have argued this is not witch hunting, but why did the DSS also go after the Chief Security Officer of the former President Goodluck Jonathan?

The DSS must have had information on him too. Thousands of Nigerians are picked up daily by the DSS and investigated, sometimes, without search warrant. That this appellation of CSO or NSA attached to people’s name does not make them to be above the law. As a citizen of this country, if the law enforcement agencies have any information on you, they are entitled to act, failure to do that will be a negation of their of responsibility under the law of this country. I don’t see anything strange in this, and I don’t think that Nigerians should be sentimental about security issues. If we follow sentiment, we all will be ruined.
Isn’t the DSS being overzealous in the discharge of its duties?

Of course not. I have no reason to doubt them that they have information on these people and that information has yielded result, which Dasuki has not denied. So, there is something. We should expect him to cry foul. He, perhaps, wants to be treated specially or invited specially, but for what? We should be treated equally. I do not think that the DSS was being overzealous. Overzealous for what? If they had gone there and found nothing incriminating, they would have told the man, ‘we are sorry. Whether it is FBI, MI6 or MI5, they do the same thing in their respective countries.

“I don’t believe that the DSS has no serious reason to investigate Dasuki and the DSS action should not translate to vendetta or witch hunting, which is now commonly used in this country to blackmail the system. And let me also say that we are living in an abnormal time, when serious, stringent action must be taken to ensure that the majority of people in this country are protected and no one man should become an impediment to that. If this kind of action is going to help the security agents solve the problem of insecurity we are facing, why not? Crying foul is unfounded. If the DSS had gone there without a search warrant, then we should be talking about his right to privacy and other fundamental human rights such as, freedom of movement was violated. As a citizen of this country under the constitution, he has all the rights, but he should also be available for security scrutiny. Nobody is above the law. “

Immediately you identify a source, you go and intervene rather than wait until after the sinister act would have been committed. I think Nigerians should wait and hear more.

But laying siege to somebody’s house and depriving him freedom of movement is clearly a breach of one’s fundamental human rights?

The search warrant at the disposal of the DSS is key here, and it is a proof that they didn’t act outside the law. Do the DSS have a right to go to Dasuki’s house for instance? They have every right in this world to go and search his house. Was he manhandled? I have not seen any evidence that he was manhandled. I don’t know anything about laying siege, but they went there to do a job on behalf of all of us and to ensure that they were proactive. That was exactly what they did.

Why is it that under a civil administration, both the DSS and EFCC have been accused of adopting commando style in the discharge of their operation in recent times?
There is nothing wrong, as long as they operate within the ambit of the rule of law. Look if you take the issue of corruption for instance, it is a very serious crime against humanity. It is an issue that has debased the economy of this country. It is an issue that people engage in deliberately to undermine the economy of this country. Corruption has the capacity to kill more Nigerians than Ebola. Corruption has caused unemployment, wastage in this country and those who engage in this activity do them deliberately and believing that at the end of the day they will use the proceeds of corruption to get themselves away from justice. People think that corruption is giving police bribe. There are heinous activities being committed by those we have allowed to be at the corridors of power. All of us cannot be in government and that is why we have said to some people to act on behalf of all of us. The people we asked to look after our treasury are the ones now robbing the place dry.

Part of the strategy against corruption is shaming people and shaking the environment so that others will learn their lessons that nobody is a sacred cow. Why must we treat those stealing our commonwealth with dignity when they have showed disdain for our own livelihood?