Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodinma and the Nigerian Police Force, allegedly got hints about the Monday attack in the state three times before the attack happened, a former Assistant Director with the Department of State Services, Dennis Amachree, has said.
Amachree said that the DSS at three different times, informed the governor and police in the state of the impending attack but that they failed to act on the intelligence report.
He revealed this when he spoke on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme on Thursday.
The ex-DSS director said during the programme monitored by FirstNews, “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 geolocated around the area were found surveilling 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.”
Reiterating that Governor Uzodinma was aware that the prison and the police headquarters was about to be attacked, Amachree said: “All security reports are shared with the governor in a state first, then, it is shared with other sister agencies like the police, the military, if there is military installations there, all of them got this particular report. So, the governor is very much aware.
“Apparently nothing was done (stop or resist the attacks). You can see that the governor was referring to that particular report that it is not IPOB.”
He regretted that “some people are just too lazy to do their jobs.”
On the claims by the sacked Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, that members of Indigenous People of Biafra masterminded the attacks, Amachree said that Adamu “doesn’t have his fact right because I don’t see how he can identify them.
“You identify people by either arresting some of them or from what they say but there was no person that was arrested.”
He, meanwhile, said that the DSS was investigating the attacks to unravel the attackers.
FirstNews had reported that gunmen on Monday attacked the Owerri Correctional Centre and allegedly set free no fewer than 1,800 inmates. The gunmen equally attacked the state Police Command headquarters situated in Owerri, set it ablaze and burnt all the vehicles parked at the command headquarters.