The Department of State Services has backed proposed legislation to establish a dedicated DSS Security Trust Fund while demanding that provisions allowing foreign entities to contribute to the fund be removed, arguing that external funding for domestic intelligence operations posed unacceptable risks to sovereignty, operational confidentiality, and institutional independence.
DSS representative Emmanuel Daubry, speaking at a House of Representatives committee public hearing on the bill, said the trust fund was a welcome and necessary mechanism for providing dedicated, sustainable financing for intelligence gathering, counterterrorism, and other national security activities outside the delays and constraints of conventional budget cycles. He said the fund was particularly needed to enable swift emergency responses to terrorist incidents, civil unrest, and other crises that required immediate operational expenditure.
However, he said accepting foreign funding for a security-related trust fund raised serious concerns because international funding arrangements typically came with reporting and disclosure obligations that could compromise sensitive operations, intelligence methods, procurement processes, and deployment strategies. He also warned that foreign funding could introduce external influence over domestic security priorities that might not align with Nigeria’s specific security realities of insurgency, banditry, and kidnapping.
On a separate bill to establish a Strategic Intelligence Management Institute, Daubry said the proposed institution risked duplicating the functions of the National Institute for Security Studies unless its mandate was specifically redefined to focus on external intelligence, foreign intelligence operations, and international intelligence cooperation. He recommended amendments to clarify that differentiation and prevent overlap between the two institutions.
