Senate President, Bukola Saraki and his Deputy, Ike
Ekweremadu, have raised alarm that the Federal Government has commenced the
execution of a plot to implicate them and their colleagues in the People’s
Democratic Party (PDP) for the last Tuesday August 7th invasion of the premises
of the National Assembly by men of the Department of State Services (DSS).
In a statement signed by their media aides, Yusuph Olaniyonu
and Uche Anichukwu, Saraki and Ekweremadu stated that after receiving the
interim report submitted by the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Idris
Ibrahim, the Presidency has today constituted a closet panel to review the
report and submit a final recommendation.
The mandate of this closet panel, the two legislators
stated, is to turn facts on the head and blame the invasion of the National
Assembly on the two leaders of the Red Chamber of the National Assembly, who
will then be presented as having worked in tandem with the sacked Director
General of the DSS, Mallam Lawal Daura to stage the parliamentary security
breach.
“We have been reliably informed that instead of the
Presidency to set up a public inquiry or judicial commission to probe last
Tuesday’s early morning Invasion of the National Assembly as being demanded by
the general public, they have commenced a process of manipulation and
fabrication.
“The Presidency has set up a closet panel, which would work
to a predetermined conclusion in which they will now claim that the Senate
President and the Deputy Senate President worked in collusion with ex-DG of
DSS, Lawal Daura to stage the invasion.
“They want to shield the fact that the previous night before
the invasion and up till the early hours of Tuesday, there was a meeting of the
All Progressives Congress (APC) senators and that the plan was for them to be
moved in a coaster bus into the National Assembly complex later that morning
for them to purportedly remove us and select a new Senate President and Deputy
Senate President.
“Their plot only failed because the media, particularly
social media, Nigerians and international community responded very swiftly as
some legislators who came into the complex were refused entry by gun-wielding,
hooded security operatives.
“Now, they want to turn the facts on its head and blame us for
their botched plot against democracy. We are hereby alerting all Nigerians and
members of the international community that the present Nigerian government
will stop at nothing to destroy, suppress and incapacitate the opposition. This
is their new tactic and plot as we approach the period of the 2019 polls.
“We hereby reiterate our earlier position that the coup
against democracy as represented by last week’s invasion must be probed through
an independent judicial commission of inquiry which will produce a
comprehensive report. We reject any manipulated and fabricated investigation,”
Saraki and Ekweremadu stated.
The presiding officers added that they have also uncovered a
sinister plot in which the government plans to use the anti-graft and security
agencies to incarcerate them and some members of their families from next week,
all in a bid to break their will and effect their removal.
