Fresh indications have emerged on how inauguration of the Eight National Assembly was almost aborted in the early hours of Tuesday, June 9.
Daily Sun gathered that the plot to kidnap the Clerk to the National Assembly (CNA), Salisu Abubakar Maikasuwa, suspend the inauguration of the Eighth Assembly was premised on using the name of President Muhammadu Buhari.
To carry out the plot, first, a message was reportedly sent to Maikasuwa by a North west senator, that he was needed at the Presidential Villa over “some developments.”
The “developments,” it was gathered, was related to the inauguration of the National Assembly on June 9.
When the CNA did not respond, another text message, from another North west Senator, was sent to him, impressing it on Maikasuwa to make himself available for the “meeting with president Buhari.”
Still, there was no response. With the deadlock and no response from Maikasuwa, the second leg of the plot was activated. Another set of senators stormed Maikasuwa’s private residence in the wee hours of Tuesday and demanded to see him.
They claimed that they were there to see him on the orders of President Buhari who wanted an audience with him. There was another deadlock as Maikasuwa refused to come of out his private quarters.
Daily Sun checks, however, indicate that the Villa was unaware of the text messages as the two messages emanated from telephone sets of two senators from the North west.
The next plot was activated by a North east governor, who made several attempts to engage Maikasuwa in his office, thereby buying time and delaying him from moving to the Senate chamber to inaugurate the Eighth Senate. That plot did not work either.
As Maikasuwa made his way to the Senate chamber, armed with the president’s June 1 Inauguration Proclamation, two sets of men from the Department of State Security Services, entered his offices and demanded to see him.
By this time, Maikasuwa was already ensconced in the Senate chamber, ready for the inauguration.
The plotters did not give up. A text message was allegedly generated, which directed all members-elect of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to converge at the International Conference Centre (ICC) for a meeting with Buhari.
Some members complied; others refused and headed to the two chambers of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
In a related development, it was also gathered that having failed to grab Maikasuwa and with no counter-proclamation from the Villa, a verbal message was relayed to a faction of the APC Senate caucus that the inauguration would not hold.
To perfect the plot, the major entrance leading into the National Assembly from the Federal Secretariat and the Head of Service were cordoned off using Police vehicles.
When those accredited to cover the inauguration demanded entry into the complex, they were told that the inauguration had been postponed.
Regardless, a ranking senator from one of the two factions in the APC Senate caucus confirmed to Daily Sun that “no message, either verbal or electronic, came from the Villa. Why has nobody bothered to ask why Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila was bold enough to stand for election on Inauguration Day and the same thing did not happen in the Senate?”
It also emerged that a new governor from the North west and a former military administrator reportedly prevailed on the president to maintain his neutrality in the election of National Assembly presiding officers.
Credit: DAILY SUN
