By Dr. Tonye Clinton Jaja
One of the milestones in my public service career was when, in the year 2021, I was conferred with the prize of Gani Fawehinmi Award for Person with Integrity in Public Office.
Ford Foundation funded the said annual awards while it is administered by the Human Development and Environment Agenda (HEDA).
The award was in respect of my public service as chairman of a certain federal government agency.
Some years ago, I was the Chairman of the governing Board of a certain federal government agency.
In my role as supervisor, I received a petition of financial embezzlement by the CEO/Chief Executive Officer of the said federal government agency.
In the spirit of fair hearing, I invited both the petitioner and the said CEO to my office.
When confronted with the documents and evidence of his financial embezzlement, the CEO broke down in sweat (inside a chilling air-conditioned office), the CEO confessed to his involvement in the financial embezzlement of the said public funds.
He begged me on how we could handle the matter. I told him point-blank that in accordance with the law, he is supposed to resign.
The CEO was not happy with my response, so he went to the then supervising Minister and after the “brown envelope”, the Minister gave him the necessary backing to “stay put” in office!!! Instead of complying with the provisions of the relevant laws, such as the Code of Conduct Act, 1991 and the ICPC Act, 2000, which recommends dismissal and even prosecution of the said CEO, I became an object of the target practice by the said Minister.
He ordered the police to harass me. The investigating police officers told me point-blank that they had “orders from above” (backed up by cash) to deal with me. But after meeting me face-to-face, interrogation and seeing all the documents that I provided, they found nothing wrong that I had done. To the contrary, it is the CEO that ought to be in police custody. They told me that they would “chop” the money that they were given to harass me, and nothing would happen!!!
Next, the said Minister recruited some officials of the Department of State Services (DSS).
I was invited to their headquarters based on the instructions of the said Minister.
Based on the stories that I had previously heard about the DSS and the reputation and propensity of the said Minister for vindictiveness, I had the apprehension that the DSS would “deal with me” as instructed by the said Minister (who had previously dealt with a former Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN).
So, before I left home on the day of honouring the DSS invitation, my wife and I said a prayer, we hugged and kissed as I believed that that would be the last time I would be seeing my family.
I took along my international passport and all the documents relating to my public service in the said federal government agency.
Contrary to my fears, the senior DSS official, after an hour of interrogation and looking through all the documents, asked me to go home. You have done nothing wrong but speak out against an obvious act of financial embezzlement that came to your notice.
That was my first time of having a first hand experience of the professional manner in which majority of the officials of the DSS conduct their operations!!!
The next incident, which is more recent, was when the Director of the National Assembly Command of the DSS invited me in my capacity as the Executive Secretary of the Association of Legislative Drafting and Advocacy Practitioners- ALDRAP.
The said Association-ALDRAP had filed a LAWSUIT against the Senate President, the Speaker and the Clerk to the National Assembly to prevent them from enacting a Bill for legislation to extend the age of retirement of the Clerk to the National Assembly from 60 to 65 years. The lawsuit was filed at the National Industrial Court of Nigeria to challenge the said Bill as it was in conflict with the National Assembly Pensions Board Act, 2023, which stipulates 60 years as the age of retirement for all staff of the National Assembly.
Once again, I went with all the relevant documentation and after one hour of interrogation, the Director of the DSS told me that the Clerk to the then National Assembly who had previously instigated the said petition against our Association-ALDRAP was economical with the truth by not disclosing that there was already a legislation on this same subject-matter.
True to his words, the DSS official went to the President with the new information, and on that basis, the President refused to assent to the Bill.
There are many other details from that conversation that I cannot repeat here because of National Security implications!!!
Again, the DSS acted with utmost professionalism in this second instance.
And I was amazed at the amount of Intel that the DSS holds on each of the principal officials of the National Assembly.
Let’s just say that if it were the FBI or CIA that held that amount of information, “heads would roll”!!!
So the recent LAWSUIT that the DSS has filed against Prof. Pat Utomi’s Shadow Government comes as no surprise to me.
It is evidence of their professionalism instead of arresting him.
Below is the newspaper report:
“The Department of State Services has dragged a former presidential candidate, Prof. Pat Utomi, before the Federal High Court in Abuja over his recently formation of a shadow government.
In the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/937/2025, the DSS named Utomi, the 2007 presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, as the sole defendant, accusing him of attempting to unlawfully usurp the executive powers of President Bola Tinubu.”
The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.
