The controversy trailing the past views of Dr. Isa Pantami, Nigeria’s Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, has taking an interesting dimension with fresh revelations from a former top official of the Department of State Service (DSS).
In an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Monday, an ex-Director of the DSS, Mike Ejiofor said the nation’s secret police is aware of Pantami’s past extremist religious views on terrorism.
“I am not the spokesperson of the SSS but I can tell you that it would be difficult for that information to have passed the State Security Service.
They must have it on record of his sympathy for Al-Qaeda and some of these terrorist organizations”.
He however, gave indication that the DSS was not to be blamed if the Federal Government failed to act on intelligence reports on Pantami before he became a minister.
While contending that there was no way the DSS would not have done a thorough background check before his appointment as minister in 2015, Ejiofor queried: “If the State Security Service submits a report on an individual to government and government fails to act on it, who is to blame?”
He however urged the citizenry to forgive the minister since he has renounced his past extremist religious views.
Pantami had in response to questions about his views on the then leader of the terrorist group, Osama Bin Laden, said he still considers the leader of the extremists a better Muslim faithful to himself.
But on Saturday, he recanted the comments and said he has “changed several positions taken in the past based on new evidence and maturity”.
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