Yusuf Bichi, the Director General of Nigeria’s secret police, Department of State Services brought hackers to help Bola Tinubu hack WhatsApp to access the messages of his opponents during the 2023 presidential election and afterwards, SaharaReporters can report.

Security sources told SaharaReporters that the experts were brought in from Cape Verde by the DSS boss.

President Tinubu was the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2023 presidential election and his victory is being challenged at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal by the Peoples Democratic Party and the Labour Party alongside their candidates, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi respectively.

“The DG of DSS brought hackers from Cape Verde to help Tinubu break into WhatsApp messages of his opponents during the elections and afterwards,” one of the sources said.

In June, President Tinubu approved the immediate retirement of all Service Chiefs and the Inspector-General of Police, Advisers, and Comptroller-General of Customs from service with immediate effect and announced their replacements.

Tinubu also indefinitely suspended the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, AbdulRasheed Bawa, from office.

“But guess who was spared from being axed! Yusuf Bichi. That is the reason why Tinubu retained Bichi after firing all the heads of security agencies,” one of the sources said.

The Director of Information in the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Willie Bassey, in a statement, disclosed that the suspension would allow investigations into “weighty allegations” of abuse of office against the suspended chairman of the anti-corruption body.

“President Tinubu has approved the indefinite suspension from office of AbdulRasheed Bawa, CON, as the Chairman, Economic, and Financial Crimes Commission to allow for proper investigation into his conduct while in office. This follows weighty allegations of abuse of office levelled against him.

“Bawa has been directed to immediately hand over the affairs of his office to the Director, Operations in the Commission, who will oversee the affairs of the Office of the Chairman of the Commission pending the conclusion of the investigation,” the statement read.

Bawa was appointed by then President Muhammadu Buhari in February 2021 as the EFCC chairman following the removal of Ibrahim Magu, his predecessor, over allegations of corruption.

Bawa was subsequently invited for questioning by the DSS and has been in the custody of the secret police since then.

On June 28, SaharaReporters exclusively reported that Bawa had been moved from the headquarters of the secret police to a private facility.

Sources told SaharaReporters that Bawa was moved to another facility to have total control over him after he refused to write any statements in custody.

SaharaReporters also exclusively reported on Wednesday, June 21, 2023, that Bawa had refused to write statements at the secret police’s facility. It was learnt that Bawa told investigators that the DSS had no right to detain him without charges, hence his refusal to write any statements in custody.

“They’ve taken Bawa from DSS headquarters to one of their private facilities to have total control over him after he refused to write statements requested from him,” a top security source had said.

Bawa has been in detention along with Godwin Emefiele, the suspended governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria since their suspension from their respective offices by President Tinubu’s administration over corruption allegations and abuse of office.

SaharaReporters had exclusively reported that Emefiele named Bawa as an accomplice in the Naira redesign scam that rocked the country some months ago.

Bawa’s invitation and grilling by the DSS came days after Emefiele was arrested and flown from Lagos to Abuja to also face interrogations over alleged corruption and abuse of office.

On November 23, 2022, then-President Buhari alongside Emefiele unveiled new naira notes in denominations of N200, N500 and N1,000. Emefiele insisted that the old notes would cease to be legal tender from January 31, 2023.

Addressing journalists after the event, Emefiele insisted that the move was not targeted at anyone as there were speculations that the move was pushed by the cabal in the Presidency and targeted at preventing Tinubu, then-presidential candidate of the ruling APC from winning the February 25, 2023 election.

The policy caused Nigerians untold hardship due to the scarcity of naira notes with the CBN unable to meet the demand for new notes. The policy led to a cash crisis and long queues at banks and ATMs.

To make matters worse, Emefiele refused to heed a Supreme Court ruling which made the old notes legal tender till December 31, before former President Buhari distanced himself from the disobedience to the court order.

According to the Independent National Electoral Commission, Tinubu defeated 17 other candidates who took part in the election with 8,794,726 votes.

The electoral body said Atiku of the PDP came second in the election with 6,984,520 votes and that Peter Obi of the Labour Party came third with a total of 6,101,533 votes.

Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria People’s Party came fourth with 1,496,687 votes.