The Department of State Services has sent two directors and 42 other senior officials on compulsory retirement. A signal from the leadership of the service issued on Wednesday night also named the former DSS spokesperson, Marilyn Ogar, as one of those affected by the development.
It is widely believed that the ongoing purge in the service was not unconnected with Mr Daura’s decision to “re-professionalise the service by weeding out politically-exposed operatives.”
The SSS is for Nigerians and not for people working for political parties.
Sources at the agency told Punch that more operatives who had political leanings would be asked to leave. One of the sources said, “Operatives should be impartial to a large extent but many officials failed to do this.
Ogar, a deputy director of the agency in charge of public relations, was removed two months ago and she equally lost her recent promotion following President Muhammadu Buhari’s nullification of the exercise.
Ogar and 44 others were promoted last March, contrary to the policy in DSS that promotions were to be done at the end of each year. Also, the promotion was not made public until May.
The demotion of the former DSS spokesperson and many other officers was the very first decision taken by the Director-General, DSS, Lawal Daura, who succeeded Ekpeyong Ita, who was sacked by Buhari.
Media reports said Ogar was redeployed to Maiduguri, Borno State, after her demotion.
Under its new leadership, the SSS had refused to appoint a new spokesperson, choosing to engage in knee-jerk reactions to issues concerning the agency through occasional press statements.
