“Shut Down the DSS? When a Security Chief Admits Defeat, Who Defends the Nation?”

By SOS / Sonala Olumhense

In August 2024, Adeola Oluwatosin Ajayi, a veteran of Nigeria’s intelligence community, took the reins as Director-General of the Department of State Services (DSS). Barely six months later, he has proposed a disturbing redefinition of security in Nigeria—one that seems to absolve the state of its constitutional duty to protect its citizens.

Ajayi’s bold assertion, made during a high-profile security gathering in Abuja in February—attended by National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu, Chief of Defence Staff Christopher Musa, and other security heavyweights—was as shocking as it was revealing. According to him, the burden of protecting Nigerians should now fall on… the communities themselves.

“You do not expect the Nigerian Army, Police, and DSS to protect every Nigerian,” he said. “It is not going to work.”

But here’s the reality: we do expect our security agencies to protect Nigerians. In fact, we demand it. The Nigerian Constitution makes it clear: “The security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.” Not a suggestion. Not a footnote. A primary purpose.

By deflecting that responsibility to communities, Mr. Ajayi isn’t offering a new strategy. He is admitting institutional failure—and proposing anarchy as a solution.

To back his argument, he pointed to cases where communities have fought back against terrorists and kidnappers. What he didn’t mention was the imbalance in firepower: civilians wielding sticks and cutlasses against sophisticated gangs armed with AK-47s, drones, GPS systems—and sometimes wearing uniforms suspiciously similar to those of our own forces.

In an almost surreal moment, Ajayi declared, “Our culture is communal. Why can’t we fight miscreants, charlatans, together?”

Miscreants? Charlatans? Is that what terrorists are now called?

He went further: “The elites should discuss with their communities, come to us, get some sort of approval and guidance, and then we can stop these miscreants…security starts from you…”

Let’s pause. What does “some sort of approval” mean? Who gives it? Does the DSS intend to deputize villagers with broomsticks to fight herdsmen armed with machine guns? And how exactly do communities “come to us”? Ride donkeys to DSS headquarters? Take the broken Lagos-Kano rail?

What Ajayi is proposing isn’t strategy. It is abdication. It is a dereliction of duty that reeks of the same deceptive narrative the ruling APC party has fed Nigerians for a decade.

Let us remember: APC rode to power in 2015 on the promise to crush insecurity. Buhari, the general-turned-president, declared he would end Boko Haram and restore order. Ten years later—with Tinubu now in charge—Nigeria is even more insecure. And what are they doing? Manufacturing philosophies of abandonment while gallivanting across Europe.

Buhari famously governed Nigeria from a London hospital. Tinubu, not to be outdone, flies to France for vague “private visits” while Nigerians bury their dead and US tariffs threaten the economy.

Under the APC, the promise of “commonsense solutions” has become a nightmare of senseless suffering. In 2015, their manifesto spoke of hiring 100,000 new police officers, forming elite anti-terror squads, and tackling the root causes of insecurity: poverty, unemployment, social injustice.

Ten years on, they’ve delivered none of that. Instead, the economy has tanked, companies have fled, the naira has disintegrated, and Nigerians now seek refuge in places like Niger, Ghana, and Cameroon.

Meanwhile, the Air Force proudly announces flying 15,915 hours in 18 months. For what? To bomb civilians by “accident”? Where are the results?

If anything, Nigeria’s worsening insecurity exposes the hollow core of its leadership. The DSS, despite its vast budget and broad authority, has become a glorified errand service for politicians—guarding VIP homes while villages burn.

Armed herdsmen roam free, yet the DSS can’t trace them. Terrorists replenish their arms without airports, seaports, or diplomatic immunity—but the DSS can’t stop them. And now the DSS wants citizens to do the job?

Let us be clear: if the DSS cannot fulfill its mandate, then it has outlived its usefulness. If it exists only to protect the powerful while abandoning the powerless, then it is a luxurious irrelevance in a nation that can no longer afford such waste.

Perhaps citizens should take up self-defence. But if they must, then they no longer need the DSS.

In that case—shut it down.