EXCLUSIVE: How Protests Forced DSS, NIA Bosses Lost Their Jobs
The reasons the immediate past Director-General of the Department of State Services, Yusuf Bichi, and the DG of the National Intelligence Agency, Ahmed Abubakar, resigned from their positions have been revealed.
Sources within the Presidency said that President Bola Tinubu and the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, questioned the intelligence gathering mechanisms of the two agencies following the violent nature of the #EndBadGovernance protests in some northern states and the seizure of three presidential aircraft in France.
While Bichi was held responsible for lack of functional intelligence on the protest, Abubakar was reportedly queried for the NIA’s inability to have reports ahead of the seizure of the jets by a Chinese company, Zhongshan Fucheng Industrial Investment Co. Limited.
A French court had sanctioned the seizure of three Nigerian presidential jets, including a newly purchased Airbus, amid a legal dispute between Zhongshan and the Ogun State Government.
The #EndBadGovernance protest, which began on August 1, turned violent in Kano, Gombe, Yobe, Borno and Bauchi states while demonstrations in the South-West were peaceful.
During the protests in some northern states, public and private facilities were destroyed, while hoodlums looted shops and caused mayhem. This led to the imposition of curfews in Kano, Bauchi, and Plateau states.
The protest was driven by widespread hardship resulting from the removal of fuel subsidy, electricity tariff hike and the high cost of living, among other issues.
Bichi, who hails from Kano State, where widespread destruction and looting occurred, was appointed on September 14, 2018, by former President Muhammadu Buhari.
Abubakar, from Katsina State, was also appointed by Buhari on January 10, 2018.
According to credible sources, Tinubu and Ribadu were embarrassed by the turn of events on the seizure of the presidential jets and the #EndBadGovernance demonstrations.
“The seizure of the presidential jets and violent nature of the #EndBadGovernance protest embarrassed the President nationally and internationally.
“The President was displeased with the NIA and DSS bosses. This was why he requested the resignation of the two security chiefs,” said one of the sources.
Another source Bichi and Ribadu had been having a running battle before the protest, with the fallout from the northern demonstrations serving as the final straw.
He stated, “The former DSS DG and the NSA boss had been on bad terms for some time. Their issues escalated to the point that Bichi was unable to meet the President for a while. The Presidency finally had a valid reason to dismiss him due to the #EndBadGovernance protest.”
Abubakar announced his resignation on Saturday, August 24, after meeting with President Tinubu.
In contrast, Bichi’s resignation was announced in a statement by the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, on Monday, August 26.
Why we celebrated Bichi’s exit – DSS officers
Bichi’s resignation elicited reactions from DSS staff and the public.
Some DSS officers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described his exit as ‘freedom from unprofessionalism’.
The DSS officers listed Bichi’s alleged misconduct to include undue interference in the service’s operations by his wife and son, Yusuf Bichi.
A video of some DSS staff members allegedly celebrating Bichi’s resignation surfaced online immediately after his departure.
However, an X user, Sanusi Jibrin, said the clip was recorded at the Kogi State DSS office, where personnel were celebrating Ajayi’s appointment, as he was a former director at the state command.
A DSS officer, however, said personnel of the agency were happy with his removal.
“We believed his regime was a punishment for us. He impeded the career advancement of many officers by extending the service years of those due to retire. Some senior officers, who were due for retirement in 2021 and 2022 were retained in the service,” he stated.
Another officer alleged that Bichi was indifferent to the welfare of workers.
“The Federal Government increased our salary by 40 per cent, but there was no implementation. We were earning more than the police before, but the police are now earning more than us because they implemented their 40 per cent increment. However, there was a proposal to increase our salary by 25 per cent this year, but it has yet to be realised,” the officer said.
Speaking on the recruitment of personnel, another secret agent described Bichi’s recruitment as nepotistic.
“Bichi’s recruitments were arbitrary and lopsided. Three different training sessions have been conducted for some people we didn’t know when they were recruited this year alone. Most of the newly recruited personnel are northerners.
“His first recruitment in 2019 brought in either 420 or 450 persons from Bichi Local Government Area in Kano alone. In the history of the service, 450 was the maximum recruitment we ever had before Bichi, but he recruited 1,000 personnel at once.
“There was no southerner among the national directors and deputy directors at the headquarters until January this year when he was directed by the Presidency following a petition. His wife is another issue; she abused her husband’s office. His son, too, was power drunk.
“Just two weeks ago, his wife slapped a DSS director in a northern state. She also slapped at least two deputy directors at airports.”
Tweeps also criticised the former DSS boss, accusing him of allowing his family to abuse power because of his position.
The publisher of Daily Nigerian, Jafaar Jafaar, while commenting on X, said Bichi turned the DSS into a “graveyard of career aspirations.”
“He lowered the recruitment bar, removed the multi-layer screening process to recruit personnel who couldn’t even pass the Halogen Security aptitude test. Bichi arguably recruited the highest number of Cotonou ‘graduates’ into the service. He wilfully extended the tenure of some retired directors in his good book for years, killing the ambitions of the aspiring directors. He allowed his wife to lord over the service, influencing recruitment, promotion and discipline,” he stated.
Jafaar alleged that Bichi’s wife oppressed people with “a superfluity of everything at the expense of public funds,” adding that she moved around in a long motorcade, harassing motorists.
“She was a stormy petrel, who was majorly in the news for either assaulting her tailor for failing to meet a deadline or picking a fight with opposition politicians. His impudent, spoiled brat son shrugged off public criticism to gleefully display a fleet of luxury cars on social media.
“At the expense of public funds, he has a number of DSS operatives giving him cover at football arena, nightclub and political campaign rallies.”
Our correspondent, while checking Bichi’s son, Yusuf’s X page, saw a video clip of when he rode in a long convoy of security operatives, suspected to be men of the DSS.
In 2023, the Kano State Governor, Abba Yusuf, had also claimed that Bichi’s wife threatened to prevent him from becoming the state governor.
The governor, in a viral video, also alleged that the woman abused and insulted him before preventing him from boarding a commercial plane.
The Executive Director of the Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, Debo Adeniran, stated that the alleged celebration of Bichi’s resignation by some staff members did not necessarily mean he was a good or bad leader.
According to him, workers do not like disciplined bosses who insist that everybody should do the right thing and reject corruption.
“I’m not saying the former DG is good because we could see a lot of loopholes in intelligence gathering and security issues.
“That staff and colleagues are celebrating his exit, it’s neither here nor there. It could be that he is very, very strict or it could be that he has not been taking care of their welfare and whatever.
“It could also be that he didn’t allow them to do their work the way they wanted to do it. And maybe his exit will allow them to prove their mettle, that they could work better than they were doing under him”, he added.
Illegal arrests, violation of court orders
Under the leadership of Bichi, the DSS was involved in many controversial operations, including the arrest of a former Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele.
Emefiele was arrested on June 9, 2023, and was only arraigned more than a month later.
On 25 July, despite a Federal High Court order granting him bail and ordering his transfer to a correctional centre, the DSS re-arrested him, with operatives reportedly assaulting a prison official at the Federal High Court in Ikoyi, Lagos, in the process.
A former presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, Omoyele Sowore, was also a victim. He was arrested on August 3, 2019, just days before a planned protest tagged #RevolutionNow against “bad governance”.
Although released on bail on December 5, Sowore was re-arraigned on December 6.
The DSS attempted to re-arrest him inside the courtroom but were prevented by his supporters; however, they succeeded in re-arresting him outside the court.
Another case involved a citizen Anthony Okolie, who was detained by the DSS for 10 weeks for purchasing and using an MTN SIM card previously used and discarded by Hanan Buhari, the daughter of former President Muhammadu Buhari.
Also, the Regional Editor of The Conversation Africa, Adejuwon Soyinka, was arrested at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos last Sunday and detained for hours before his release. However, his passport was confiscated.
Efforts to reach Bichi proved unsuccessful as of the time of filing this report.
