DSS Untreads The Old Path

By Simon Reef

The appointment of Mr. Oluwatosin Adeola Ajayi as the Director-General of the Department of State Services (DSS) in August 2024 marked the beginning of a new era for the secret police, which members of the public then saw as operating beyond the rule of law. As the successor to Alhaji Yusuf Bichi, who led the DSS for six years under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, Ajayi’s appointment was seen as a square peg in a square hole, poised to align the agency’s operations with the imperatives of the nation’s democratic setting. Nearly two years since he became the DG, Ajayi has focused on operational shifts, including implementing institutional changes. Ajayi has turned the DSS into a security agency that has prioritised intelligence operations, with the secret police becoming more focused on intelligence-led operations, including building stronger ties with members of civil society to realise new essentials of a reformed security outfit.

Tackling The Past
Under the human rights reform policy introduced by the DSS boss, the agency publicly approved financial compensation for at least 13 people who were victims of wrongful detention, mistaken identity, or operational errors. Among those compensated was a Sokoto-based trader who was erroneously shot during a 2016 gunrunning raid in Jos. He was awarded ₦20 million, comprising ₦10 million court damages plus an additional ₦10 million goodwill payout, alongside lifetime free DSS healthcare.

An Abuja-based businesswoman, wrongfully arrested on oil bunkering suspicions during a raid, got compensated with the sum of N10 million. Five other individuals who were co-detained over the same oil bunkering investigation were awarded ₦10 million to share among themselves. In approving these rewards to compensate for wrongful treatment by the agency in the past, Ajayi was owning up to past mistakes and assuring Nigerians of the agency’s new resolve never to allow such mistakes to recur. In the past, the secret police were a metaphor for unconcealed coercion for the violation of human rights. The Ajayi-led DSS now operates within the confines of the law as it should be under a democratic setting.

Civil Relations
The DSS does not operate in exclusion of society. For the Service to succeed, encouraging collaborative relations with members of the public in the performance of its job is critical. Religion is becoming one of the nation’s fault lines, thereby widening the gulf of negative partisanship working against the country’s growth and unity among citizens. When Ajayi, the son of a Christian cleric, last year donated an Islamic school named Darul Ilm Centre for Islamic Studies, discordant tunes ripped through the airwaves, arguing that the DSS boss had no business donating Islamic schools to religious groups.

The centre, which provides a hybrid curriculum on Islamic knowledge, Western education, and vocational skills, is in the Danbushiya community, Millennium City of Chikun Local Government Area. With the support of Ajayi’s friends and allies, the school was built by the secret police boss to cater to orphans and other vulnerable people. Since the Islamic school was donated by the DSS boss, who is a Christian, the project was celebrated as an act of religious tolerance, peace-building, and national unity.

The secret police boss was not done, as he further donated a school named Kaduna Christian Academy, Sabon Tasha in Chikun LGA. Governor Uba Sani described the Academy as the best of ‘Non-Kinetic Warfare’, made possible through investing in a safe environment for youth education. The essence of the donated schools, according to Sani, is to counter the root causes of radicalisation and violent crime in violence-prone areas. The Minister of Defence, Gen. Christopher Musa (retd), who commissioned the project last month at the Kaduna Christian Academy, designated the academy as a “critical military asset without a single rifle”.

For an agency that once evoked fear on account of its past, the institutionalisation of periodic humanitarian outreaches to orphanages by Ajayi across the 36 states has gone a long way to engendering community-level intelligence gathering. Within less than two years of assuming headship of the agency, Ajayi ensured the recruitment of 27 orphans and other less-privileged members, providing them with the platforms to contribute their quota in the service of Nigeria.

More than anything, the DSS DG has transformed the traditionally strained relationship between it and the media. This singular feat has earned the DSS boss the ‘Man of the Year’ award from the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in June 2026; Press Freedom Commendation by the International Press Institute (IPI), as well as the award of ‘Friend of the Media’ by the Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria (BON), among other awards.

More On Prevention
In nearly two years as boss of the secret police, Ajayi has spearheaded a strategic shift that harps on intelligence-led and preventive security measures. Instead of turning the force into a retroactive force, the DSS is focused on neutralising perpetrators of violent crimes before they strike. Inter-agency collaboration has expanded tactical cooperation between the DSS, the Nigerian Armed Forces, and the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA). The fallouts of these collaborative endeavours, recently leading to the rescue of abductees in Oyo State, are linked to the intelligence framework built under Ajayi’s leadership.

Unlike in the past, when the DSS was too preoccupied with blowing its trumpet and making more noise than doing its job of securing the country, the DSS boss has closed the information directorate and only responds to issues when necessary. With vast field experience in the Niger Delta and many states in the North, Ajayi’s leadership of the secret police is intensifying efforts at combating economic saboteurs engaged in crude oil theft, pipeline vandalism, and activities of terrorists. Ajayi has refused to embrace the old style of indefinite detention, but has now resorted to legal fireworks for adjudication on matters handled by his agency’s investigators.

Nigeria is yet to defeat its many security challenges, but Ajayi’s headship of the secret police has largely succeeded in turning the tables on negative perceptions that the DSS is incapable of being reformed. More than any security agency in the country, Nigeria’s secret police has become friendlier, devoid of the excessive intimidation it was famed for in the past. That is the legacy of Ajayi, whose headship of the secret police, in collaboration with the nation’s armed forces, is leaving no stone unturned to smoke out perpetrators of terror from their hidden caves and make them face the full wrath of the law.