The Department of State Security is not having a good time in the court of public opinion right now. And it’s actually for good reason. We should even be raising more hell than we currently are,

The other day in Lagos, a group of photographers had to spend about two hours waiting at the DSS office in Lagos Island because an over-zealous and quite frankly, ignorant officer deemed a DSLR pointed openly in broad daylight on the street was being used by an insurgent for espionage. Really? It took pleas and threats “from above” to get them to release their “suspect”.

In that time, real spies may have actually had their time of day. But that’s beside the point. These security officials have been so emboldened by whatever government is in place and behind them that they act as though it’s them against the rest of us, “bloody civilians”.

Today, a young man has had to take to Twitter to beg Nigerians to hound the Department of State Security to release his father who has been in their custody in Abuja for no reason for weeks since February. The father, Babatunde Gbadamosi, a PDP chieftain and critic of the Buhari administration has been held in custody for weeks without cause. It makes no sense. And it reeks of a “big man” somewhere trying to prove what he/she can do or undo. It shouldn’t make sense. Not under democratic dispensation should we have such things happening.

We had been sure of it during Marilyn Ogar’s run at the Department of State Security where she took us to school on how Bring Back Our Girls campaigners were part of a franchise and her many other reckless tendencies. But that was just one person. We figured maybe the DSS had just picked one bad mouthpiece and when she got demoted and then kicked out of the organisation, we figured “whew”!

It turns out we could have held our breaths a little longer as Marilyn was not really the problem. Since the new administration started it’s clamp down on corruption ( and it’s interpretation of it as you may have already noticed), we have had so many throw back to the supreme military rule moments than we even want to admit.

Just last month, tthe Police released Audu Maikori after holding him in detention for a night and then came back a week later to say they had just concluded their investigations and had no charges to bring against him. After he had been arrested and detained. Again, it makes no sense. It should not make sense.

The worst yet has to be the episode with the judges. There’s has never being and will never be any justification for that horrible raid on those peoples’ homes. Not if we are to lay proper claim to being in a democracy.

Audu Maikori is free, the judges are now being prosecuted, Apostle Suleiman had a close shave and Mr Gbadamosi, with this revived public outcry will soon be freed, if their track record is anything to go by but we shouldn’t have to fight so hard everytime for those entrusted with our safety to be pried off our backs. We shouldn’t have to ear that the State instrument will ever be used to oppress its citizenry. Not in a democracy.

As the incident with the photographers proves, it really could be anyone of us next. So we should not wait till the next victim needs saving before we decry this bad behaviour.