DSS Arrest Predicted: Audio Shows BOSYA Chief Warned He’d Be Detained for Media Revelations
By: Abudu Olalekan
The head of the Borno State Youth Association saw it coming. In an audio recording, Samaila Ibrahim Kaigama laid it all out before the Department of State Services actually arrested him.
He knew something was up. Intelligence had reached him that the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, wanted him locked up. Why? Because he wouldn’t stop talking to the media.
“I’m getting rumours that NSA is planning to detain me,” Kaigama said in the recording, obtained by Reportersroom. “They feel I’m digging up a lot.”
He had a meeting scheduled with Ribadu around 2 p.m. that day. Before walking in, he reached out to his media contacts. If they didn’t hear from him in the next 24 to 48 hours, he told them, assume the worst. Publish everything he’d given them. Don’t wait.
“If you do not hear from me in the next 48 hours, you can put out whatever you want,” he said. “I’m informing you now so you’ll know what’s happened.”
The guy was basically running out the clock on his freedom.
What made things worse was that Kaigama had been communicating with terrorists. Boko Haram operatives. They’d made some explosive claims—his words, “very bold” claims. He couldn’t release a video about any of it yet because he was still piecing everything together with the information they’d given him.
“Speaking about a few things, I communicated with the terrorists this evening,” he explained. “They made some very bold claims on certain things.”
So there he was. Caught between armed groups feeding him information and the government wanting him silenced. He even joked grimly about whether he’d make it through the next day.
“I want to go for tomorrow’s activities, God willing, if I’m alive,” Kaigama said.
Then it happened. Just as he predicted.
The DSS picked him up in Abuja after he’d appeared on Channels Television making allegations about ransom payments flowing to Boko Haram. The arrest raised immediate red flags among human rights groups. Here was someone speaking out, and suddenly he’s in custody.
Human rights activist Omoyele Sowore confirmed it. A lawyer from Deji Adeyanju’s firm tried visiting Kaigama at DSS headquarters. Waited over an hour. The agency wouldn’t let him see his client. Wouldn’t even let him through the doors. So he left empty-handed.
The pattern was unmistakable. Kaigama had warned the media. They’d ignored the warning—or couldn’t do much about it anyway. And now a man who’d been asking uncomfortable questions about terror financing was nowhere to be found.
Olalekan A. Abudu is a seasoned and dedicated News Journalist at REPORTERS ROOM, with over eight years of experience. He specializes in politics, climate change, health, and education, while also covering security, economic, and judicial issues. Committed to accuracy and balanced reporting, Olalekan exemplifies the principles of public-interest journalism.
