How Imo Police Command Ignored DSS Intelligence Report On Owerri Attack |The Source

By Charles Igbo

Was the unprecedented attack on the Owerri Correctional Centre, and the Headquarters of the Imo State Police Command in the early hours of Easter Monday avoidable?

Perhaps, yes, if the Police Command had taken, seriously, the intelligence report from the Directorate of State Service, DSS.

Hundreds of hoodlums, armed with weapons, including explosives, attacked both the Police Command and the Owerri Correctional Centre.

At the Police Command, they released several numbers of detainees at the Criminal Investigation Department, razed buildings,  and burnt about 50 vehicles, including Police Operational vehicles. And the Correctional Centre, they released 1884 prisoners, and burnt vehicles.

Usually reliable sources informed this magazine that the Police Command was given at least a 72 hour information that the Police Command was under the danger of an attack. But, apparently, the Police did not take it seriously.

Said the source, “Information from the recent attack concerning the attack on the Imo State Police Headquarters and the Owerri Correctional Facility confirm  that the Commissioner of Police ignored intelligence  sent from the DSS warning of the impending attack.”

When the DSS received  intelligence information, it “discreetly conducted a vulnerability assessment of the two correctional facilities in Imo state and advised fortifications based on the discovered security weakness of the facility.”

The source said: “The Commissioner of Police received a credible intelligence report 48-72 hours before Monday, warning of an impending attack on the Police Headquarters in Imo state between April 4 and 6. Yet, Police did not heed to actionable intelligence, the consequence of which has let loose over 1800 inmates into the society.”

However, the military allegedly  averted the same type of attack, planned against  Tuesday  at the Okigwe Prison.

The soldiers acted on credible intelligence from the DSS, and so had the Okigwe Correctional Centre cased, thus aborting the attack.

Meanwhle, Nasiru Mohammed,  Commissioner of Police, Imo State,  has been  redeployed by the Force Headquarters.

The DC has been appointed as the Acting Commissioner of Police.