The Department of State Services (DSS) has said 34-year-old Kaduna based lecturer and activist, Abubakar Idris (Dadiyata) is not being held in any of its facilities.

This was contained in a statement signed by the Public Relations Officer of the DSS, Dr Peter Afunaya, in Abuja, on Tuesday.

According to the service, the rebuttal was in response to a series of allegations by a section of the media, “particularly Punch and Daily Trust newspapers, that the Service is illegally detaining some Nigerians.”

The DSS took issue with reports linking it to the travails of Idris, whose whereabouts remains shrouded in mystery and Agba Jalingo, who is being tried by a court in Cross River State at the behest of the Governor, Prof. Ben Ayade.

The DSS had initially denied having him in their custody when contacted in August 2019 by Daily Nigerian who broke the news of his abduction.

Idris, was abducted from his home on August 2, 2019, by armed men believed to be DSS men while his wife and young daughter watched.

The lecturer, who is said to be a known government critic, has not been seen in public or heard from ever since.

“The service has no reasons to deny its arrest and detention of suspects if actually it carried out operations during which such persons were arrested,” Afunaya said.