‘DSS Alerted Uzodinma, Police Three Times Before Imo Attacks’

A former Assistant Director with the Department of State Services (DSS), Dennis Amachree, has said the secret police alerted the Nigeria Police Force and Imo State Governor, Senator Hope Uzodinma, at least, three times before last Monday’s attacks in the state.
Amachree, however, said the police and the governor, who is the chief security officer of the state, failed to act on the intelligence by the DSS.
The former DSS official spoke, on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme monitored by The Tide in Port Harcourt, yesterday.
It would be recalled that gunmen had, last Monday, attacked the Owerri Correctional Centre and freed over 1,800 inmates.
The attackers also razed the Imo State Police Command Headquarters situated in Owerri, and burnt all the vehicles parked at the command headquarters.
Speaking on the television programme, the ex-DSS director said, “There was enough intelligence, enough actionable intelligence. Actionable in the sense that it allows for space for people to execute it; one week ahead of the event and of course 72 hours before the event and then 48 hours before the event.
“So, three times, the Nigeria Police Force was informed by the DSS that this is going to happen because some suspects that are being geo-located around the area were found surveying the prisons and the police headquarters but you know in our lackadaisical way, when the intelligence came, they threw it by the side and when something happens, everybody runs around.”