Kingsley Nwezeh in Abuja
The Director-General of the Department of State Services (DSS), Yusuf Magaji Bichi, said yesterday that the agency was guided in its activities by the tenets of democracy and committed to national security imperatives.
The DG, who spoke in Abuja, also commended President Mohammadu Buhari for ascenting to the National Institute for Security Studies Establishment Act, 2019, saying the act would enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the security agency.
He said DSS as an institution was guided by the tenets of democratic rule and the provisions of the Constitution.
Bichi said the agency was committed to its core mandate of detection and prevention of crime saying the security situation in the country would have been worse were it not for its proactive approach to threats to national security.
“Our core mandate is to detect and prevent crime. Are we achieving that? Yes. The security situation could have been worse. The dynamics of threat continue to change, the approaches continue to change. Crisis and conflict are not peculiar to Nigeria. They are everywhere.
“We are continually preventing, we are continually detecting. We are working with sister agencies, law enforcement agencies to ensure that citizens pursue their legitimate duties and do businesses without let or hindrance. We are committed and re-dedicated to national security that provides us peace and an enabling environment that provides us a conducive environment for the pursuit of our ambition,” Bichi, who spoke through the Public Relations Officer, Peter Afunanya, said.
He said: “we work to strike a balance between the functionality of a state and security and freedom of the citizens. We are guided in all of these by the tenets of democracy and the provisions of the constitution.
“The function of government is to ensure the welfare and security of citizens and the fundamental objective principles of state policy. We know for instance that the DSS will support the state to be alive to function just as we know that we have to protect the citizens to be alive to discharge their responsibilities”, he said.
He commended President Buhari for ascenting to the NISS Act which he said would empower the agency to discharge its duties effectively in terms of training and retraining of personnel.
“The role of the DG Yusuf Magagi Bichi in the getting the bill to become a reality is commendable. He pursued it. He just came in September last year and he said no, let us reintroduce the bill and between the time he came and now, the bill was passed and now the president has ascented to it.
“The DG should be commended. He is a game changer in the national security management. It is a value adition to the national security achitecture”, Afunaya said.
The NISS Act 2019 signed into law by President Buhari recently is “Än Act to provide for establishment of the National Institute for Security Studies, Abuja for the administration and management of the Institute and determining the standard of knowledge and skill to be aquired by the personnel of the institute for related matters.
Director of the NISS, Mr. Ayodele Sadique Adeleke, hailed President Buhari for ascenting to the bill saying the act would take the agency and the nation’s security architecture to the next level.
