Boko Haram hostage negotiator, Davis is "self-styled and self-appointed", says DSS

 

The Department of State Services, DSS, has denied being the source of the information credited to Australian Boko Haram hostage negotiator, Dr Steven Davis, describing him as “a self-styled and self-appointed negotiator.”

Deputy Director, DSS Public Relations, Marilyn Ogar, nevertheless said the body was investigating Davis claims and has invited former Governor of Borno State, Ali Modu Sheriff to answer some questions bordering on the fresh allegations linking him with the sponsorship of the dreaded Islamic sect, Boko Haram.

However, the department said it couldn’t be true that the immediate past Chief of Army Staff, COAS, Lt. Gen. Azubuike Ihejirika was a financier of the deadly Boko Haram, saying it would be wicked of anyone to link him with the sect.

Davis had listed Sheriff and Ihejirika as Boko Haram sponsors.

Ogar, spoke in Abuja while parading the alleged co-mastermind of the Nyanya blast, Sadiq Ogwuche, along with other suspects, Ahmed Abubakar, Muhammad Ishaq, Yau Saidu, Anas Isah and Adamu Yusuf.

While dismissing the allegations by Davis on Azubuike Ihejirika, the DSS spokesperson said, it was “uncharitable for Nigerians to reward someone who laid down his life, to associate him with the sponsorship of the sect.”

She said it was through the doggedness of the military under Ihejirika that insurgents were dislodged from the major cities like Okene, Kano to the Sambisa forest and that “it is wicked of anyone to link him to the sponsorship of the sect.”