A former Assistant Director of the Department of State Services (DSS), Mr. Dennis Amachree, yesterday alleged that the agency reportedly informed the police and Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodinma, about an impending attack on the Police Command and prison facility in the state a week before the incident.
Speaking when he featured on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme, Amachree said there was, “enough actionable intelligence” gathered by the DSS before Monday’s attacks, but the police and the governor failed to act on the intelligence report. The former assistant director also insisted that the police were informed about the attack one week and 72 hours before it happened, but that they were too lazy to prevent it.
He said: “There is enough intelligence, enough actionable intelligence. Actionable in the sense that it allows for space for people to execute it. One week ahead of this particular event, of course, 72 hours before the event and then, of course, 48 hours before the event.
“Three times the Nigeria police was informed by the DSS that this is going to happen. Some suspects that are being relocated around the area were found surveilling the prisons and the police headquarters. “But you know, in our lackadaisical way, when the intelligence will come, they throw it by the side and then of course when something happens, everybody runs around.
“I listened to the governor’s speech. He is correct in the sense that there is an investigation still going on, very sure he is very aware of some of the root causes and the people that are involved because I know that the security agencies are feeding him with reports as they go along.” Amachree said the police was the “actioning party” that should have taken steps on the security intelligence, adding that the former Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Mohammed Adamu, did not get his facts right before alleging that the masterminds of the attacks were members of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
Suspected gunmen had, on Monday, attacked the Nigeria Correctional Centre, Owerri and the state’s Police Command Headquarters in Owerri, where over 1,844 inmates were freed. On the heels of this, gunmen also, on Tuesday, attacked another police station located in Ehime Mbano Local Government Area in the state, thereby fuelling suspicion of a possible ‘Fifth Columnist’ in the state. In the wake of this on Tuesday, President Muhammadu Buhari, therefore, appointed Mr. Alkali Baba, as the Acting IGP.
Credit: New Telegraph