Hot Source*Awards N20m compensation
The Director General of the Department of State Services (DSS), Mr. Oluwatosin Adeola Ajayi, has ordered the immediate release of an Abuja-based businesswoman, Mrs. Chineze Ozoadibe, who was wrongfully arrested and detained for several months.
Mrs. Ozoadibe had been apprehended by a sister security agency on suspicion of involvement in illegal oil bunkering and subsequently transferred to the DSS.
However, following a thorough investigation, DSS operatives established that her arrest was coincidental and she had no connection to the alleged crime.
“In the course of investigation, DSS officers discovered that the businesswoman’s arrest was coincidental,” a credible security source disclosed. Convinced of her innocence, the DG directed her release and approved a compensation of N10 million.
In addition to Mrs. Ozoadibe’s release, the DSS has also freed five other individuals who were similarly found to have been wrongfully detained. The DG approved a shared compensation of N10 million for the group.
Sources within the Service note that the release of wrongfully arrested and detained persons, and the award of compensation to them, have become the new culture of the DSS since Mr. Ajayi took over as DG.
“This is not an isolated case of setting free wrongfully detained persons. The DSS DG has done that several times. It’s only a few that made it to the media. Remember the Jos-based businessman who was mistakenly shot by the DSS in 2016.
“It took eight years and the arrival of Tosin Ajayi as the DSS boss for the Service to agree to pay the N10 million a Federal High Court awarded the victim as damages. Not only did the new DSS boss pay the N10 million, he doubled it to N20 million, and added free medicare for life for the victim,” recalled the source.
“As a thoroughbred professional, Mr. Ajayi has seen and experienced first-hand, that even the best security agencies sometimes make mistakes.
“That is why, on assuming office, he addressed his personnel to be very painstaking in their operations. He also admitted that, as humans, they are fallible. However, that when they make such mistakes, they should be man enough to admit it, the reason he is releasing wrongfully detained persons and awarding them compensation,” added the source.
“In the bid to cut down on these mistakes, the DG has directed the legal department to ensure that due process is painstakingly followed in all cases being handled by the Service. Now, the standard procedure is that all Investigation Officers conduc proper investigations before carrying out any arrests,” he said.
