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Buhari’s ex-CSO, Marilyn Ogar sacked

The Department of State Services (DSS) has retired 15 senior officers including President Muhammadu Buhari’s immediate past Chief Security Officer Abdurrahman Dauda Mani, and the…

The Department of State Services (DSS) has retired 15 senior officers including President Muhammadu Buhari’s immediate past Chief Security Officer Abdurrahman Dauda Mani, and the Department’s former spokesperson, Marilyn Ogar, Daily Trust learned yesterday.
Sources said the Service compulsorily retired them through a directive issued late on Wednesday. Two directors were also among those retired.
The affected persons were said to have been investigated by a panel over alleged misdemeanours and professional misconduct.
Mani was fired as Buhari’s security chief on July 4, after he engaged in a supremacy battle with the president’s Aide- de- Camp Lt. – Col. M. L. Abubakar, among other allegations of misconduct.
He was subsequently redeployed to Ebonyi command of the service. He was replaced by Bashir Abubakar, an assistant director in the Bayelsa State command.
Mani was deployed by the DSS as a security detail to Buhari in 2011 weeks before he launched his campaign that year.
He was appointed as CSO to Buhari as part of security arrangement ahead of his swearing in on May 29, this year.
The then director general of the DSS Ita Ekpenyong was the one who announced Mani’s appointment, which also came with accelerated promotions, during a courtesy visit to Buhari days after the president was declared winner of the poll.
The ex-DSS spokesperson was compulsorily retired because of her unprofessional conduct during 2015 electioneering campaigns.
Several allegations of corrupt behaviour were made against her, it was gathered.
Ogar was promoted to position of deputy director along with about 44 other officers, but the promotion was cancelled on grounds that they did not follow due process.
The promotion exercise was conducted by Ekpeyong at the tail end of President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.
She was also alleged to have been partisan in her utterances as spokesperson of the DSS, in favor of the then ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
Other state service personnel affected by the retirement included the immediate past Administrative Officer (AO) in the Presidential Villa Widi Lawal, it was learned.
Lawal was replaced by Abubakar Abdullahi Maikano. He was redeployed to the Oyo state command before the retirement exercise.
Mani and Lawal were redeployed from the Presidential Villa for allegedly “undermining” the orders of the president’s ADC who instructed the withdrawal of the DSS officials serving as body guards to the president whenever the latter was out of the Villa. They were replaced with personnel of the Nigerian Army Intelligence (NAI) unit.
Mani challenged the ADC’s withdrawal order by issuing a counter directive asking the DSS to return to their duty posts, insisting that they were better trained and lawfully designated to provide close body protection for a civilian president.
The CSO and AO are charged with enforcing discipline among the DSS personnel in the Villa. They were said to have played roles in the security shake-up saga which was said to have angered the president, hence their redeployment.
The current purge in the DSS, according to sources, was due to series of petitions sent to the service against the officers for conducts described as outside their official responsibilities.
Our source added that although the officers have been advised to go on compulsory retirement, to which some have already complied, some are said to be gearing up to contest the decision.
The source said some have been complaining they were not given fair hearing on the accusations levelled against them.
Daily Trust also gathered that some of the petitions had detail of offenses committed by the officials including bank account numbers alleged to have large cash deposits that could not be explained.
Further information on the development could not be obtained from the DSS because it has not appointed a spokesperson several months after the removal of Ogar.

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