ACN decries police, SSS tussle over Oyerinde’s murder

CITING indiscipline, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has described as a national embarrassment the bickering and power tussle between the police and the State Security Services (SSS) over investigations into the killing of Olaitan Oyerinde, the Principal Private Secretary to Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State.

In a statement issued in Lagos yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the ACN decried a situation in which one week after the police had paraded some suspects in relation to the murder, the SSS brought yet another group of suspects for the same crime.

The party recalled that earlier, the show of shame had kicked off with allegations in the media that the SSS was recycling suspects, as those being paraded for the murder of Oyerinde had earlier been paraded in the same clothes for another murder.

It said that however rather than respond constructively and intelligently to the grave allegation, the state spy outfit went on the attack, arguing that the suspects they paraded in the two unrelated murder cases were only coincidentally wearing identical dresses.

It added: “Why are our security forces always in a hurry to parade suspects who under the law are presumed innocent? Why can’t the SSS focus on intelligence gathering and national security? What is the business of the SSS parading armed robbery suspects and pursuing mundane matters when terrorism is taking over the country? And finally what is the interest of the SSS in this particular case even as the riddle surrounding the murder of Oyerinde remains unresolved in spite of this awkward and embarrassing flurry of mudslinging between the two securities agencies.

According to the party, the way out of this national embarrassment was for each of these security agencies to stick to its statutory roles if we were to forestall an impending intelligence disaster.