The Department of State Services (DSS) intends to arrest ‘Fisayo Soyombo, founder and editor-in-chief of the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ) “anytime from now”, FIJ has been told.
According to a security source who was speaking with FIJ on Wednesday, Soyombo will be arrested by the DSS “any moment from now, as soon his whereabouts can be traced”.
FIJ could not immediately establish why the DSS would be after Soyombo, or if it is because of his work as an investigative/undercover reporter, as a social critic on microblogging platform X or as the founder of FIJ, an online newspaper that exposes injustice and holds the government to account.
READ ALSO: Undercover as a Smuggler
Soyombo’s recent investigations include an undercover investigation on smuggling and gunrunning titled ‘Undercover As A Smuggler’, which he then followed up with a series of ‘good morning’ tweets. A number of Soyombo’s ‘good morning’ tweets — a series of early-morning notes drawing public attention to the rot in the customs service — indicted numerous officers, including a Member of the Order of the Federal Republic (MFR) and current Comptroller-General of Customs (CGC); Hussein Ejibunu, the then Controller, Federal Operations Unit Zone A, Ikeja, Lagos; Ahmadu Shuaibu, the then Controller of Ogun 1 Area Command of the NCS; and also IBD Dende who was filmed threatening to kill an Assistant Superintendent of Customs (ASC) who stopped the smuggling of his goods from Benin Republic into Nigeria.
READ ALSO: Nigeria Customs Removes Ejigbunu After Several ‘Good Morning’ Tweets
Soyombo’s recent criticisms on X often feature the disrepute to which the DSS has fallen, being a state security service that has now become a tool for hounding journalists and activists.
The DSS blaming its Juwon Soyinka’s passport seizure and detention on ‘mistaken identity’ has to be the joke of the year.
The country’s foremost intelligence agency lacks the compentence to properly identify its targets?
The logical redress would be a public apology to Juwon,…
— ‘Fisayo Soyombo (@fisayosoyombo) August 31, 2024
Hardship protests by Nigerians – DSS intervention, arrests.
Journalist’s exposé on unregistered sachet water factory in Sokoto – DSS intervention, arrest (of journalist — not factory owner).
NLC’s planned anti-petrol price hike protest – DSS intervention, arrest of NLC…
— ‘Fisayo Soyombo (@fisayosoyombo) September 9, 2024
FIJ itself continues to execute the kind of critical reporting that the Bola Tinubu administration has proven to be unable to tolerate. Only on Wednesday, FIJ reported how Oluremi Tinubu, Nigeria’s first lady, received N700 million from the state house to purchase dollars for foreign trips between November and March. This is despite claiming at an event before Tinubu’s inauguration in 2023 that her family was blessed and they did not need Nigeria’s wealth.
READ ALSO: Remi Tinubu Receives N700m From State House to Buy Dollars for Foreign Trips in 5 Months
It is the first time Soyombo will be on the radar of the DSS, his recent detentions by the security forces having been with the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Monitoring Unit in December 2021 and the Nigeria Police Force National Cyber Crime Centre (NPF-NCCC) in August 2024. In both cases, he willingly honoured police invitations but he was detained and subsequently released on bail.
Back in 2016, the Nigerian army accused him of committing subversion an offence punishable with death in military regimes, following his five-part investigative series on the plight of soldiers who got injured while fighting Boko Haram but were abandoned by the military and the government.
Also, in 2019, after he went undercover to penetrate Pedro Police Station and Ikoyi Prison, where he spent two weeks as a ‘suspect’ and an inmate respectively to expose corruption and malfeasance in Nigeria’s criminal justice system, the Nigeria Immigrations Service (NIS) mulled arresting him, only making an about-face following public outcry.
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7 replies on “ALERT: DSS Planning to Arrest FIJ Founder ‘Fisayo Soyombo”
The DSS, like terrorists, only look for soft targets. Everyday terrorists, bandits and other non-state-actors commit atrocities across the nation, some of them even posting on social media platforms. But this organization and others like it will go MIA. When it concerns journalists and rights activists, they’ll be acting like the FBI.
Leave Fisayo be!
Journalism is not a crime, leave Fisayo be and focus on the culprits indicted in his brave investigative journalism pieces.
FIJ, editor-in-chief, should be protected at all cosr. He is doing the Lord’s work and is one of Nigeria’s last stand, alongside David Hundeyin, against anti-people stance of this present Administration of President Tinubu. He must be protected with everything we have.
You guys are still Fisayo? DSS lacks credibility abeg.
This is to show how poor our security operatives are in this nation that they dance to injustice and crimes committed by the elites and those in power.
DSS shame to una…stinking puppets.
Every security organisation in Niger is currently being rubbished because they’ve been politicised. This is the reason why the combine security operatives cannot eliminate terrorism and corruption. Governor el-rufai even said banditry is business. And they concur by their collective silence.
Why should we continue to chase shadow in this country instead of facing realities in this country?
Someone independently investigated issues, using his personal resources and on top of it, risks his life to expose evil in the land and only to become the hunted. While the statutory organisations funded with State resources are busy subverting the rules of law and swimming in the deep of corrupt practices. What an irony! The alleged criminals are all occupy positions in high places. There must be end to bad governance! Let Soyombo be!!! #ENDBADGOVERNANCE# #STOPCORRUPTION@SECURITYHIGHCOMMAND# #LETSSAVENIGERIA#