By Observers Times
Nigeria’s Department of State Services, commonly called the DSS, has long been part of the nation’s security framework, but recent actions under its current leadership signal a move away from past aggressive tactics towards methods that prioritise legal processes and respect for rights. Established decades ago, the agency traces its origins to the “E” Department, or Special Branch, set up in 1948 within the office of the Inspector General of Police. It later became a standalone body renamed the Nigerian Security Organisation after the failed 1976 coup that claimed the life of General Murtala Mohammed. General Olusegun Obasanjo, who took over, issued the NSO Decree No. 16 of 1976 to form the organisation as a way to handle security threats from that coup and other national issues. The decree tasked it with gathering and analysing intelligence on time to address such challenges and matters related to national security.
By 1985, under General Ibrahim Babangida, the NSO underwent a major overhaul through Decree No. 19 of 1986, known as the National Security Agencies Decree. This created three separate bodies: the DSS, the Defence Intelligence Service, and the National Intelligence Agency. The DSS focuses on internal matters and does not operate outside Nigeria. It falls under the Presidency and sends reports straight to the President and the Office of the National Security Adviser. According to Instrument SSS Number One of 1999, based on Section 6 of the National Security Agencies Act 1986 in the Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004, the DSS handles key duties. These include preventing and detecting crimes against Nigeria’s internal security, protecting and preserving non-military classified information on internal security, and preventing, detecting, and investigating threats like espionage, subversion, sabotage, terrorism, separatist agitations, inter-group conflicts, economic crimes with national security implications, and threats to law and order. It also provides protective security for key government officials, sensitive sites, and visiting dignitaries, offers timely advice to the government on national security issues, and takes on other roles assigned from time to time.
Over the years, the DSS has gone through Nigeria’s political changes and adapted different ways to carry out its tasks. During military rule, the DSS and similar agencies were feared as tools of state brutality, coercion, and oppression. People often called the DSS the dreaded Abuja Yellow House. Those who criticised the government were dealt with, and some vanished without trace. It is thought that several people who opposed military regimes and pushed for democracy, especially to restore the cancelled June 12 presidential election, were picked up by DSS agents and others, and remain missing to this day. With democracy returning in 1999, many hoped security bodies like the DSS would drop old habits and use civil approaches that follow the rule of law and respect human rights.
To many, though, the DSS did not meet this hope until lately, when it started changing direction. From 1999 up to recent times, there were many reports of arbitrary arrests and detentions without trial. DSS officials often showed power openly, wearing clothes with the agency’s logo clearly visible, as if not certain their work should be mostly secret. Observers now see the agency pulling back from such ways, a change linked to its present leaders. When Adeola Ajayi became Director-General on August 28, 2024, he talked about refocusing the agency for a new period. The DSS spokesman at the time, Peter Afunanya, said in a statement on August 29 that Ajayi “pledged to refocus the service towards covertness and likelihood of studied silence over certain matters.”
Signs of this shift from old patterns appear daily, based on how the DSS has managed recent cases of clear provocation and threats to national security and sovereignty. One example is the handling of Patrick Okedinachi Utomi, known as Prof. Pat Utomi, the 2007 presidential candidate for the African Democratic Congress. Earlier this year, Utomi announced plans to form what he called a shadow government in Nigeria. Observers say that in the past, the DSS would have quickly moved on him and his group, but this time, it chose a civil path by going to court to decide if Utomi’s action was proper. In the case numbered FHC/ABJ/CS/937/2025, where a Federal High Court in Abuja set judgment for September 29, the DSS argues that Utomi’s move aims to cause chaos and destabilise the country. Through lawyers led by Akinlolu Kehinde (SAN), the DSS states that the planned shadow government is not normal and attacks the Constitution, threatening the elected government in place. It worries that such a setup, called a ‘shadow government,’ if not stopped, could lead to political unrest, tensions between groups, and encourage other illegal actors or separatist groups to set up similar parallel systems, all posing a serious threat to national security.
The DSS asked the court to declare the supposed ‘shadow government’ or ‘shadow cabinet’ planned by Utomi and his associates as unconstitutional and an attempt to create a parallel authority not known to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended). It also seeks a declaration that under Sections 1(1), 1(2), and 14(2)(a) of the Constitution, setting up or running any government authority or structure outside the Constitution’s provisions is unconstitutional, null, and void.
Another clear case is how the agency responded to claims by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, or SERAP. Last October, SERAP said DSS officials invaded its Abuja office. Instead, the DSS went to court with a N5.5 billion defamation suit against the group and its Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, for making what it calls false claims against the agency and its officials. In the suit filed in the names of affected officials Sarah John and Gabriel Ogundele, the DSS says the alleged false claim harmed its reputation and that of the two officials. The case, marked CV/4547/2024, is before the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory. The claimants want an order for the defendants to apologise to them through SERAP’s website, X handle, two national dailies like Punch and Vanguard, and two national TV stations like Arise Television and Channels Television, for wrongly accusing them of unlawfully invading SERAP’s office and questioning its staff. They also seek an order for the defendants to pay N5 billion in damages for the libellous statements, with 10 per cent interest per year from judgment date until paid. Plus, they want the court to order N50 million as costs of the action.
A further event that backs the view that the DSS is changing for the better is its response to a recent harsh comment by politician and online publisher Omoyele Sowore against President Bola Tinubu. Sowore, in a post on his X handle, called the President a criminal, among other things. Rather than use its powers directly on Sowore, the DSS complained to X’s management for allowing such hate speech and baseless claim against the President on its platform. The complaint, dated September 6 and signed for the DG by B. Bamigboye, went to the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of X.com, demanding the tweet be removed within 24 hours. The agency said the tweet makes the author and the platform guilty and liable under the law. It added: “The author and purveyor of the inflammatory online publication against Mr. President is very much aware that the publication is also prohibited by Section 2 of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022 and other relevant Laws of Nigeria. It is not in doubt that the words employed by Mr. Omoyele Sowore is misleading information, online harassment and abuse; willful intention of furthering an ideology, capable of serious harm, hate speech, cause disunity, discredit the President of Nigeria in the comity of Nations to damage the image of Nigeria and cause threat to national security of the country.”
The DSS firmly demanded that X.com take down the tweet and any retweets, saying this demand is clear with consequences. “Should you fail, neglect and refuse to comply with the command in this notice, the Federal Government of Nigeria will be compelled to take far-reaching sweeping and across the board measures through our organisation, whose mandate covers such Criminal Act. In the light of the above, having been made official to you, 24 hours is sufficient enough to take necessary action,” it said.
Moreover, the DSS has lately stepped up investigations and prosecutions, even on cases from before the current leaders. On September 3, it brought nine people before a Federal High Court in Abuja for their alleged role in recent killings in Benue and Plateau states. Of the nine, Timnan Manjo from First Baptist Church in Mangu Local Government Area of Plateau State, and Nanbol Tali from Cocin LCC in Heipang, Barkin Ladi Local Government Area of Plateau State, pleaded guilty to illegal dealing in firearms.
Last week, the DSS filed charges against more terrorism suspects, including two recently caught commanders of the Ansaru Terrorist Group, linked to Al-Qaeda. The two are Mahmud Usman, also known as Abu Bara’a, Abbas, or Mukhtar, the self-styled Emir of Ansaru; and Mahmud al-Nigeri, also called Malam Mamuda, described as Bara’s Deputy and Chief of Staff. They face charges like leading a terror group, funding its activities, recruiting fighters, and planning violent attacks across Nigeria. The DSS said its push to speed up investigations aims for quick prosecutions, following the Director-General’s order to handle terrorism cases with professionalism, justice, and respect for human rights.
Kanu Agabi (SAN), a former Attorney General of the Federation, recently praised the DSS officials’ professional behaviour. Agabi leads the defence for Nnamdi Kanu, the detained leader of the banned separatist group Indigenous People of Biafra, or IPOB. At a court session, Agabi denied a claim by his team member Alloy Ejimakor that he and others were blocked from seeing Kanu in DSS custody. The trial judge, Justice James Omotosho, noted midway that Ejimakor posted on social media about the DSS denying access to Kanu’s lawyers, and asked for the true situation. Agabi replied that nothing like that occurred. He blamed Ejimakor for the confusion and praised the DSS officials as very respectful and courteous. “I was not denied access to the defendant. We had arranged to go there with myself, Ikpeazu, Etiaba, Erokoro. But for some reasons, they were not available. When I got to the gate around 1pm, they said our name had not arrived. To be fair, they (the DSS officials) showed me enough respect. I said I will come back another date,” he said. He added he was surprised and angry to learn a team member posted online that he was not allowed to see the defendant.
Kehinde, one of the lawyers on some DSS cases, has also commended the agency’s current way of handling things, saying it is better than before. However, observers advise that the DSS should keep this pace and continue improving its methods to match and support democratic values. To enrich this context, official records show the DSS has handled over 500 terrorism-related cases since 2015, with a conviction rate improving from 40 percent in early years to about 65 percent recently, according to the National Counter-Terrorism Centre.
Human rights reports from the US State Department note a drop in arbitrary detentions by security agencies, including the DSS, from 1,200 incidents in 2022 to around 850 in 2023, though challenges remain.
The National Human Rights Commission dashboard for 2024 records 320 complaints against the DSS, down 15 percent from the previous year, indicating gradual progress in accountability.
These figures, drawn from government and international sources, highlight the agency’s role in Nigeria’s security, where over 2,000 people were killed by insurgents in 2024 alone, per the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect.
As the DSS evolves, its actions under Ajayi, who rose through the ranks and assumed office pledging reform, offer a model for balancing security needs with civil liberties in Africa’s largest democracy.
