DSS Disowns Ex-Director, Amachree’s Comment On Pantami

 

Former Assistant Director of the Department of State Service (DSS), Dennis Amachree’s statement on the embattled minister, Isa Pantami has been disowned by his former outfit.

The spokesperson of the DSS, Peter Afunanya has made the disclosure that  Amachree’s views on Pantami’s case were his personal positions and it did not represent the DSS.

Peter Afunanya ”Opinions expressed by Mr Dennis Amachree on sundry national security issues are his personal positions and do not in anyway represent the stand of the Service (the Department of State Services),”

Amarachree said that the minister was appointed and had a lot of things overlooked simply because of his political colours.

Amachree said, ”There is no information that escapes the DSS, we have all of it, all. When I was working there, we keep a catalogue of anybody of interest that comes up to limelight in this country.

”During the vetting process for anybody to be appointed a minister or commissioner or anything, your name is sent to the SSS for vetting. They check your background up to the extent of your grandmother. They check your schools up to the extent of your primary school.

”And of course, they keep a tab on you online and offline. We get a lot from open-source intelligence and I can tell you that in Pantami’s case, we have it. But there is a political angle to it.

”When somebody is being appointed, if the security agencies see that there is something wrong with his name, they will send it to the appointing agency. The appointing agency will now decide amongst other variables either religious variable, federal character balancing variable, or political variable and say that, ‘Oh, yes, we know that this guy has this and that but let’s appoint him.

”So, the political decision is not taken by the SSS. Even when you go to the Senate for confirmation, there is party by party and you can see that there are some political candidates that the opposition party will say that this one will not be appointed but because he belongs to that party, they will appoint him.

”So, these are political and federal balancing where they will say that there is nobody from this place that has been appointed, so let’s appoint him.”