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

The Department of State Services (DSS) has released four people after clearing them of suspected membership of the proscribed Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB). A security source told TheCable that the agency paid each of them ₦5 million in compensation.

The four were identified as Emele Uduma Ibe, Berefgagha Appah, Ondokeyilemi Aggry and Oyeinmokebebeton Aggry. They were reportedly arrested in May 2022 in Sampou and Akeddei, communities in the Kolokuma/Opokuma and Sagbama local government areas of Bayelsa State.

According to the source, the DSS found that the four had been misled into believing they would each receive ₦100,000 a month under the federal government’s amnesty programme. The source said they did not know the people who had approached them were IPOB members. Those individuals are now standing trial, the source added. Deji Adeyanju, counsel for the four, received them after their release and commended the DSS for its efforts to uphold human rights in Nigeria.

The agency introduced a policy about a year ago to compensate people it had wrongfully detained. In August, it released Mustapha Marwana, a carpenter from Katsina who had been arrested over suspected links to the Ansaru terrorist group, and paid him ₦3 million. In June, the DSS freed Nura Idris after an internal review cleared him of involvement with Boko Haram. The agency approved ₦3 million in compensation to help him rebuild his life.

In November 2025, the agency released Kenneth Nwafor after three years in detention. He had been wrongly accused of belonging to IPOB and received ₦5 million in compensation. A month earlier, the DSS released Chineze Ozoadibe, an Abuja-based businesswoman who had been arrested by another security agency on suspicion of illegal oil bunkering before being transferred to DSS custody. She received ₦10 million in compensation.