The Department of State Services (DSS) has arrested Azubuike
Ihejirika, a former chief of army staff.
According to The Nation, the secret police picked Ihejirika
from his Maitama, Abuja residence, late Tuesday. He is reportedly being investigated over his alleged
sponsorship of agitators of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
He is not the first person that the secret police would
arrest over alleged ties to Biafra agitators.
In March, Victor Umeh, a chieftain of the All Progressives
Grand Alliance (APGA), spent about 24 hours in DSS custody over suspicion of
sponsoring IPOB. Unlike Umeh, Ihejirika is also said to be undergoing
investigation for his alleged role in the $2.1 billion arms purchase probe
involving Sambo Dasuki, former national security adviser.
In 2014, Stephen Davis, an Australian cleric, who was hired
by former President Goodluck Jonathan, alleged that the army chief was a
sponsor of the Boko Haram sect, an allegation that Ihejiriaka denied.
Incidentally, the DSS later cleared him of the allegations.
“For us to accept that he is associated with the same sect
whose activities he, together with this service, succeeded in bringing to a
halt in Kano, Okene and other places, pursuing them down to the Sambisa
forest,” Marilyn Ogar, who was then the spokesman of the agency, had said at a
press statement. “And to accept that the same man was sponsoring Boko Haram
is wicked and uncharitable. We should not allow people to use our liberal
nature to perpetrate all sorts of evils in our society.”
Former President Goodluck Jonathan appointed Ihejirika as
the most senior officer in the army in September, and he remained in the
position until he retired in 2014.
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