Senate Prove DSS-EFCC Clash

The root cause of a recent clash among operatives of three security agencies in Abuja may soon be revealed, as the Senate on Thursday began interrogation of each agency to ascertain their role in the misunderstanding.

The agencies are the Department of State Services (DSS), Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the National Intelligence Agency (NIA).

Thursday’s interrogation of the Heads of the individual agencies follows Senate resolution to unravel the circumstances surrounding the clash which the red chamber also described as “unnecessary.”

Fact finding mission
At the opening of the session, chairman of the Ad-hoc committee on the probe of the misunderstanding, Senator Francis Alimekhena, assured Nigerians that the exercise is a fact finding mission that seeks to avoid similar altercation in the nearest future.

Senator Alimekhena, who is also the Deputy Whip of the Senate, confirmed that the interrogation will hold behind closed doors because of the security implications of the testimonies expected to emanate from the probe.

 “This committee is not set up or intends to witch-hunt any one of you rather, it is a fact finding committee to see that this type of altercation does not occurs again in the near future,” Senator Alimekhena stated.  

Senator Alimekhena also noted that the Heads of the three Agencies will appear before the ad-hoc committee on different days to ensure that each testifier is comfortable enough to tell the lawmakers the whole truth about the incident.

Acting Chairman of the EFCC, Mr. Ibrahim Magu was the first to face the Senators on day one of the probe on Thursday, while the DSS and NIA Bosses are to appear on subsequent dates. The probe is not open to the public.

The Senate resolution in late November, 2017 was in response to an altercation between operatives of the DSS and their EFCC counterparts, over aborted arrests of former DSS boos Mr. Ita Ekpeyong and the former NIA boss, Ambassador Ayo Oke.

It was against this backdrop that the Senate set up an Ad-hoc committee to investigate the matter and report back to senate in plenary within two weeks.

The resolution of the Senate followed a point of Order by Senator Dino Melaye, who cited Order 42 of the Senate’s rule.

In the motion, Senator Melaye drew the attention of lawmakers to the reported clash between the sister agencies, informing the Senate that DSS agents prevented the EFCC from arresting former Director Generals (DG) DSS Mr. Ekpeyong and NIA Mr. Oke, thereby causing panic.

VON.