Barely 72 hours after the Department of State Services (DSS) arrested his father, Dr. Barnabas Suleiman—Head of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Baze University, Abuja—demanded his release on Wednesday, describing the detention as a victim of Kogi State politics. Dr. Suleiman disputed the DSS’s claim that his father was taken for security reasons, stating that the arrest occurred in the early hours of Saturday while his father was traveling to Abuja to attend the screening of Kogi State governorship aspirants on the All Progressives Congress platform, where he intended to support one candidate.
When the arrest became known, Dr. Suleiman said he reached out to contacts within Kogi State’s corridors of power, only to encounter feigned ignorance. Some officials, he alleged, tried to convince him that the incident was a kidnapping case. He argued that his father’s situation exemplifies how “people in government have resorted to intimidation and political persecution of those seen as threats to their planned installation of a next governor for Kogi State.”
The DSS reported on Sunday that it had arrested a retired colonel and eight others, recovering arms from them. In a statement, DSS spokesperson Peter Afunanya said the arrests were carried out by operatives in Kogi, Adamawa, Abuja, and Plateau States between March 1 and March 26 as part of a joint operation with other security agencies. Among those detained was a retired Nigerian Army officer identified as Colonel A.U. Suleiman, along with five alleged members of his gang.
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