DSS reportedly pays N20m compensation to males arrested over alleged IPOB membership

The Department of State Services (DSS) has launched 4 folks after clearing them of suspected membership of the proscribed Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB). A safety supply advised TheCable that the company paid every of them ₦5 million in compensation.

The 4 have been recognized as Emele Uduma Ibe, Berefgagha Appah, Ondokeyilemi Aggry and Oyeinmokebebeton Aggry. They have been reportedly arrested in May 2022 in Sampou and Akeddei, communities within the Kolokuma/Opokuma and Sagbama native authorities areas of Bayelsa State.

According to the supply, the DSS discovered that the 4 had been misled into believing they might every obtain ₦100,000 a month below the federal authorities’s amnesty programme. The supply stated they didn’t know the individuals who had approached them have been IPOB members. Those people are actually standing trial, the supply added. Deji Adeyanju, counsel for the 4, acquired them after their launch and counseled the DSS for its efforts to uphold human rights in Nigeria.

The company launched a coverage a few 12 months in the past to compensate folks it had wrongfully detained. In August, it launched Mustapha Marwana, a carpenter from Katsina who had been arrested over suspected hyperlinks to the Ansaru terrorist group, and paid him ₦3 million. In June, the DSS freed Nura Idris after an inside evaluation cleared him of involvement with Boko Haram. The company accepted ₦3 million in compensation to assist him rebuild his life.

In November 2025, the company launched Kenneth Nwafor after three years in detention. He had been wrongly accused of belonging to IPOB and acquired ₦5 million in compensation. A month earlier, the DSS launched Chineze Ozoadibe, an Abuja-based businesswoman who had been arrested by one other safety company on suspicion of unlawful oil bunkering earlier than being transferred to DSS custody. She acquired ₦10 million in compensation.