Comrade Timi Frank, a former deputy national publicity secretary for the All Progressives Congress (APC), said on Thursday that the security agencies were using the alarm about a plot to impose an Interim National Government (ING) as a pretext to arrest PDP presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar and his Labour Party (LP) rival, Peter Obi, before the May 29 handover deadline.
The DSS had accused those it referred to as “entrenched interests” of plotting to undermine democracy by imposing an ING on the nation on Wednesday in Abuja.
Frank, however, disagreed with the DSS’s assertion and urged the agency to be more forthcoming, claiming that the secret police knew more than it chose to reveal to Nigerians.
According to him, the agency’s security alert was intended to serve as an excuse to arrest many opposition politicians in the nation and to crack down on peaceful protesters who were demonstrating against the rigged 2023 presidential election.
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“The DSS’s claimed intelligence is fake,” he declared. It is a scheme to suppress protests and detain political figures from the opposition before May 29.
“We have reliable information that the DSS made the announcement in advance of its planned disruption of the ongoing protest by Nigerians who are demonstrating peacefully to demand justice and the restoration of their stolen mandate,” the report reads.
Frank, the ULMWP’s ambassador to East Africa and the Middle East, claimed that the DSS should have used the same information to prevent the abuse and murder of Nigerians by terrorist organizations over the years.
“Where was their intelligence when Mahmood Yakubu and the Independent National Electoral Commission were compromised to rig the 2023 general election?” he asked.
“Bandits, kidnappers, and terrorists have been harassing Nigerians for a while, but the DSS has never provided information to stop kidnapping, heinous attacks, maiming, or killing of innocent Nigerians.
The DSS only ever appears to discuss intelligence matters when Nigerians are getting ready to demonstrate against objectionable laws, regulations, or violations of human rights or engage in legal political activity.
When Nigerians want to exercise their constitutional rights, the DSS must stop intimidating them by using this tactic, particularly with regard to politicians.
The DSS or any other security agency in the nation is actually dared to arrest Atiku and Obi before May 29 or face the wrath of Nigerians, according to the statement.
However, he urged demonstrators not to be alarmed by what he described as “this DSS’ fake intelligence of a phantom ING plot.”
In order to ensure that the stolen mandate of the Nigerian people is restored through peaceful protests and the legal system, he urged the UK, US, and EU to immediately call on the Nigerian Government to permit Nigerians to exercise their democratic rights.
The DSS is planning to sponsor counter protests across the nation in order to clash with the peaceful protesters and use that as a justification to crack down on them, he continued.
We challenge the DSS to identify the participants in the phantom plot if they genuinely have “intelligence” about a plot to start an ING so that the world is aware of those who want to thwart the President’s inauguration.
“However, we are aware that they are lying. This is frequently how they behave when they want to propagandize and carry out a smear campaign.
Instead, let them identify the alleged politicians who were involved in the plot. Their true objective is to crack down on demonstrators and detain Atiku and Obi prior to May 29. Nothing further.
We take this opportunity to request that the international community press President Muhammadu Buhari to order the DSS to stop interfering with the democratic process.
He claimed that the DSS was planning to arrest Atiku, Obi, and other prominent opposition politicians, which was going to undermine democracy in the nation.
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He further urged the DSS to prevent the agency from being used to undermine democracy or as a source of false information.
He insisted that the DSS had recently made an unsuccessful attempt to apprehend and bring charges against Godwin Emefiele, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, for allegedly funding terrorism in the nation.
“After the uproar that followed the move, they later withdrew. One of these hoaxes like this one is too many, he said.