Yesterday in Abuja, lawyers, who, on Monday, filed contempt proceedings against the DG of the Department of State Services (DSS), Yusuf Bichi, following the continued detention of suspended Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Godwin Emefiele, have raised the alarm over alleged threats to their lives.
The Lawyers spoke yesterday on the premises of the Federal High Court in Abuja.
The lawyers claimed that the DSS was threatening to link them with terrorism activities by allegedly referring to them as lawyers to the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and Eastern Security Network (ESN).
One of them, Tijani Ahmed, referred to a tweet that went viral on the DSS’ official tweeter handle in reaction to the case they filed and insisted that the organisation was planning to tag them with alleged terrorism-related activities.
Ahmed said: “Around 6 a.m, when we met this morning, the tweet was still there on the handle of the DSS. This was about 17 hours after it had been posted and had really gone.
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“At that time, it had been seen by about 2 million people, globally, generated over 3,600 comments, re-tweeted almost 5,000 times and liked more than 2,500 times.
“The tweets, which have been greeted by national outrage and condemnation, is still on the handle of the security agency.
“In the same vein, the tweet by the DSS has also exposed it, very clearly to the world, that the persecution Mr. Godwin Emefiele suffers today is largely due to the ethnic profiling, as directed by the DG DSS.
“The fact that Mr. Emefiele is Igbo and attained the height of CBN governor to Mr. Bichi is an abomination, hence his resolve to see that Emefiele is pulled down because to him, all Igbo are IPOB/ESN terrorists.”
Ahmed alleged that it was obvious that the DSS boss had declared war on lawyers and Igbo people, claiming that the persecution being suffered by Emefiele is largely due to ethnic and political reasons.
On July 13, spokesperson of the Department of State Services (DSS), Dr. Peter Afunanya, confirmed that the agency had filed charges against Emefiele.
