No fewer than seven Polish citizens have been arrested in connection with the use of foreign flags in the Kano protest.
The suspects have been transferred to Abuja for further interrogation, The Nation learnt.
They were said to be students in one of the tertiary institutions in Kano.
Peter Afunanya, the spokesperson of the Directorate of State Service (DSS) disclosed this on Wednesday, August 7, while responding to the Polish Ambassador to Nigeria on the whereabouts of the suspects during the briefing of the Diplomatic Corps by Nigeria’s Minister, Yusuf Tuggar on the ongoing nationwide protest.
Afunanya said they were found during the protest displaying foreign flags in Kano.
He stressed that they were picked as a result of security enforcement because of where they were and not targeted at the Polish.
He said: “For the persons we have picked up from Kano because of where they were found during the protest and display of the foreign flag in Kano that was two days ago and as a responsible security organisation we owe it an obligation to do some verification and ascertain basic reasons and circumstances for some cases.
“They were picked as a result of security enforcement because of where they were when the incident happened. It is not a targeted operation on behalf of my Director General DSS and Nigeria.
“As the foremost domestic security organisation, we believe we have to work in sync with all of you who are men and county of goodwill and our operations must be governed by democratic principles and protocol that emphasises freedom and human rights and of course intelligence and security governance we obey all of this whether we are dealing with Nigerians or foreigners.
“But we have a plea, in the cause of the discharge of our duty we will also see that some Nigerians definitely would want to use foreign lands as a lunch pad to attack domestic peace and stability, we plead that you do not offer your country to some person who may be deviance or have a terrorist inclination in today’s global pursuit if anything happened in a country it affects the others. Nigeria is a country with a large population and I believe that the support other countries will give will help us.”
