Armed security operatives believed to be from
the Department of State Services (DSS) have reportedly arrested the Statistician-General of the Federation/Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Prince Semiu Adeyemi Adeniran, in his office, according to a report by News Point Nigeria.
NBS is the main government body responsible for the collection, analysis, and dissemination of statistical data in the country.
The newspaper claimed that the arrest was in connection with the latest Crime Experience and Security Perception Survey report released by NBS last Tuesday.
The survey report revealed that Nigerians paid a total of N2.23 trillion as ransom over a period of one year, from May, 2023 to April, 2024.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu came to office on May 29, 2023.
The survey report further revealed that the eye-popping sum was paid by families affected by kidnapping incidents even as it stressed the rising threat from criminal and associated activities in the land.
Giving a breakdown of the kidnap and crime incidence on a geographical zone-by-geographical zone basis, the report said the North-West zone had the highest incidence of crime with 14.4 million cases reported, followed by the North-Central zone with 8.8 million incidents while the South-East had the lowest.
As rumours of possible official reprisal began to filter in, a senior NBS official told News Point Nigeria that Mr Adeniran was arrested by those described as DSS operatives Wednesday morning in his office.
“As we speak, the CEO is still in DSS custody, the operatives invaded our headquarters, took away our computers and the crime survey documents and also arrested Mr Adeniran on Wednesday”, the source claimed.
The source reportedly added: “The CEO added about N2 billion to our 2024 budget for the new Crime Experience and Security Perception Survey report, and we got government approval for the funds but after the conclusion of the report, which took about seven months, instead of liaising with the security agencies and the supervisory Finance Minister, Atiku Bagudu, the CEO went on to publish the report independently.
“We were told the President and the Minister were not happy with the report because the survey was deemed to have embarrassed the government and the security agencies, especially in their fight against insecurity in the country.
“After the publication of the report, the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, summoned a meeting with the Finance Minister and some top security officials in the country and afterwards there was an instruction to shut down the website and then the DSS raided our office and arrested Mr Adeniran.”
NBS had announced that its official website had been hacked by unknown persons, in a statement posted on its official X (formerly Twitter) account Wednesday night.
The body appealed to the public to disregard any information or reports shared on its behalf from unofficial sources until the website is fully restored.
Several moves to contact the spokesperson of the NBS failed, as of press time.
