DSS lists hate speech, insecurity as biggest threats to 2019 elections

Director-General of the Department of State Services (DSS), Lawal Daura, says insecurity and hate speech as major threats to the 2019 elections.

Daura made this known in a presentation made to the senate ad-hoc committee on the review of the current security infrastructure in Nigeria.

While presenting the committee’s 38-page report on Wednesday, Ahmed Lawan, senator representing Yobe central, said the DSS director-general sounded a note of warning about the “bleak outlook” of the 2019 general election.

He quoted Daura as saying “the country is getting more divided like never before due to the lack of synergy between traditional institutions and security agencies, as well as hate speeches that have dominated the political space”.

Lawan also said other security agencies who appeared before the committee spoke in the same vein, adding that Yusuf Buratai, chief of army staff, identified the nation’s major security challenges to include Boko Haram threats, militancy, cultism, secessionist and extremist groups, inter-ethnic, religious and communal violence.

Buratai was also said to have identified impediments to combating internal security challenges to include absence of governance and ungoverned space, and inadequate intelligence information sharing mechanisms among security agencies.

Others are inadequate resourcing of security agencies, administration of criminal justice system, porous borders and poor border controls, poverty, unemployment and lack of opportunities and cultural and social impediments.

Lawan said the committee observed that the security agencies require professional skills, equipment and technology to contain security issues.