Aliyu Gebi, a Nigerian former lawmaker, has been detained by The Department of State Security Service (SSS) agents on suspicion of providing fraudulent information to foreign embassies in the nation.
The politician, now a security consultant, was picked on Friday, April 3 but now granted bail and still under investigation, ENigeria Newspaper learnt this from an exclusive report by PremiumTimes.
Investigators verified that Gebi was still reporting to the DSS headquarters while the probe was ongoing.
The reports revealed that Aliyu Gebi allegedly sent intelligence reports to foreign missions that were later deemed false and deceptive by Nigerian authorities.
A couple of sources, after contacted, have spoken on the issue and confirmed that Aliyu Gebi’s reports caused recent U.S. advice alerting its citizens to security threats in certain Nigerian states.
Recall that the US Department of State has asked Americans to avoid traveling to Nigeria and advised non-essential personnel to depart the country due to a “deteriorating security situation.” Crimes like roadside banditry, kidnapping, assault, and armed robbery were highlighted as common issues in the advice.
The report also identified states such as Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Kogi, Kaduna, Katsina, Zamfara, and Rivers, among others as “high-risk states’ and should be avoided.
Former Reps member Aliyu Gebi was born in Bauchi State on January 17, 1975, and has held a number of important positions in Nigeria’s security industry. In 2011, he was elected to the House of Representatives, where he presided over the House Committee on Internal Security.
Later, he worked as a Special Advisor on Non-Kinetic Security Strategies at the Defence Headquarters (DHQ) after serving as a Special Advisor at the Ministry of Interior from 2015 to 2023.
The Federal Government, however, in response, resisted the recommendation, asking international partners to make sure their evaluations were “balanced and up-to-date” and represented “the progress being made” to strengthen national security.
“While we acknowledge isolated security challenges in some areas, there is no general breakdown of law and order, and the vast majority of the country remains stable”, the presidency statement had said.
“Our security agencies remain actively engaged in protecting lives and property, and the results of these efforts are increasingly evident.
“We encourage our international partners to continuously engage with Nigerian authorities to obtain a more comprehensive and current understanding of the situation on the ground.”
It was not the first time that such advisory notice was given by the US. A revised travel alert for Nigeria was released by the US Embassy in Abuja in October 2022, indicating an increased danger of terrorist strikes in Abuja. The alert cautioned Americans against visiting the capital at that time and advised those who were already there to think about leaving using the commercial methods that were available.
The Department gave the go-ahead for non-emergency U.S. government personnel and their families to leave Abuja on October 25. Due to the same increased risk of terrorist attacks, it ordered the departure of relatives of U.S. federal personnel two days later, on October 27.
