A leaked report of the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris on the reckless and unauthorised blockade of the National Assembly on Tuesday by masked DSS operatives has buttressed suspicions that it was ordered by the sacked Lawal Daura at the behest of some ‘powerful politicians’.
The IGP said the blockade was done with the intent to “incite and weep up sentiment of the National Assembly members against the Federal Government of Nigeria”.
The report said Daura was not officially invited by the leadership of the National Assembly to send his hooded and masked men to mount the blockade on 7 August and there was no crime committed prior to the invasion.
He did so on a “claimed intelligence report that unauthorised persons were planning to smuggle “undisclosed weapons and incriminating items into the National Assembly Complex. He did not inform the Acting President, neither did he share the information with the Nigerian Police Force or other security agencies.”
And to underscore the false premise of the so-called intelligence relied upon by Daura, he did not deploy anti-terrorist forces or EOD experts or specialists to the National Assembly, the IGP said.
Instead Daura sent armed officers of the DSS, who were wearing masks to disguise their identities, and who acted more like “mercenaries, hired to carry out executions.”
The Police boss concluded: that “it is crystal clear that the principal suspect, Lawal Musa Daura may be acting the script of some highly placed politicians to achieve selfish political goals, hence his unilateral and unlawful decision to invade the `National Assembly Complex”.
In a related development , Senator Babafemi Ojudu, Special Adviser to the President on Political Matters, told Channels TV on Wednesday that the government was shocked to see hooded operatives of the DSS at the National Assembly. And he revealed that contrary to the video images circulating on social media that some PDP legislators were prevented from entering the National Assembly, about 25 of them were found sitting at the lobby, inside. There was no single APC legislator around.
“It was very embarrassing to the Acting President. People started calling us to say that it was on television that APC members were being allowed in while PDP members were not. I was immediately instructed to go there and find out what was happening. I went and found about 25 PDP lawmakers sitting in the lobby. I looked around and couldn’t find a single APC lawmaker. I went back and asked because what we were told was that the APC senators were inside trying to impeach the Senate president and I found out it was not true.
” So What was happening? I asked the DSS operatives – if you barricaded the gate because you anticipated trouble, then how did the legislators inside gain access? Who did you discuss with?
“The acting President was not aware so who authorised you to mount the barricades? If you are going to take such a measure as a security Chief, then you must consult the commander-in- chief.
“He needed to be consulted and then he would tell you whether or not to go ahead. But he was in the dark and did not know anything about it. He got to find out about that incident like you and me.
“The PDP is given to drama and misleading the public. The other time they alleged that the police had stormed Saraki’s house and it later turned out that the vehicles that were used to block his house belonged to the operatives that were attached to his security detail.
“Something is wrong somewhere. I think they are trying to work on the people’s imagination and get some kind of sympathy so they concoct these stories. A member of that PDP caucus alleged that he was kidnapped and had to hide in a tree for 11 hours. All those things are just drama. It is all part of their plot.”
On why Acting President sacked Daura, Ojudu responded:
“President Buhari is on vacation and if you look at the provisions of the constitution, the president committed a letter to the National Assembly indicating that the Vice President would act in his position. He has all the powers of the president. The question of whether or not he consulted the president is not important. What is important is that the Acting President found something that was wrong and he acted quickly to assure Nigerians and the rest of the world that our democracy is on course.”
Read the IGP report verbatim here:
