EXPOSED! How plot to kidnap NASS Clerk, abort Tuesday inauguration backfired

Three different plots but with similar goal: to abort the inauguration of the 8th National Assembly on Tues­day, June 9 failed only when the first leg, and the most crucial one, could not fly.

The first plot was to kidnap the Clerk to the National Assembly (CNA), Alhaji Salisu Abubakar Maikasuwa (OFR), from his resi­dence in a highbrow district of Abuja in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.

If that plot had succeeded, the next stage was a carefully composed text message that would be sent out to National Assembly mem­bers-elect of a purported meeting with Presi­dent Muhammadu Buhari at the International Conference Centre (ICC).

The text message was expected to draw out certain members-elect with a view to keeping them stranded at the ICC while some mem­bers would access the two chambers of the National Assembly, get the required numbers and then, conduct elections.

The timing of the meeting was keenly de­bated but it was gathered that 9:00am was eventually agreed upon.

The third leg of the plan was to ensure that after the favoured group was seated in both chambers, no movement would be allowed into the National Assembly thereafter until the inauguration and election of presiding officers was concluded.

The plan was almost sailing through but for the refusal of the person central to the plot to step out of his house on that Tuesday morning.But for the refusal of Maikasuwa, to step out of his house in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, the inauguration of the 8th National Assembly would have been aborted.

Saturday Sun gathered from National As­sembly sources that the plot to kidnap Mai­kasuwa few hours to inauguration of the new National Assembly was to keep him incom­municado for several hours.

With Maikasuwa nowhere around the Na­tional Assembly, the inauguration would have been suspended as the 1999 Constitution (as amended) stipulates, while the rules in both chambers recognize only the CNA as the legal authority to inaugurate the National Assembly in the President’s stead, after the Proclamation would have been issued.

Saturday Sun gathered that when some un­identified men got to Maikasuwa’s gate, “be­tween the hours of 4:00am and 5:00am, his security details were told to call him from the house because they have an urgent message from President Buhari to give him.”

Maikasuwa refused to fall for the trick.

“When he was contacted via intercom and the message was relayed to him, he refused to step out of his private quarters.Immediately, his security men sensed something was amiss and radioed back to the National Assembly security for help and backup. They sent a distress call to us…”, the source added.

The source however refused to disclose whether help and reinforcement came from the National Assembly Sergeant-At-Arms, the federal legislature’s traditional security agency.

Somehow, Maikasuwa beat the security cordon thrown round his house and made it to the National Assembly. Safely ensconced in his office, he reportedly told his staff that armed with the inauguration Proclamation, which had arrived his office on June 1 from President Buhari, he was ready to do just that at the stipulated time of 10:00am.

With Maikasuwa’s botched kidnap, the second and third leg of the plot was activat­ed. First, the text message was sent out and in fact, Saturday Sun confirmed from reliable National Assembly sources that two set of text messages were sent. The first set was to mem­bers-elect and the second was to Maikasuwa.

The first text message directed mem­bers-elect to go to ICC for a crucial meeting with Buhari. Some senators-elect complied while some did not. Rather, they headed to the Senate chamber for the inauguration cer­emony.

The second text message sent to the CNA di­rected him to delay the inauguration as mem­bers-elect would be meeting with the president at 10:00am. The text message pleaded for a slight delay.

Another National Assembly source dis­closed that, “the text message was not from the President because official lines of com­munication are known; text messages are not known sources of correspondence between the arms of government. If there truly was any need for a delay in the inauguration, the pres­ident would have communicated that to the CNA via the same medium the Proclamation came…”

The third leg of the plan: the security cor­don around the NASS ensured that as early as 6:00am, nobody was allowed into the Nation­al Assembly White House Complex, which houses the two chambers of the Senate and the House of Representatives, from the first gate which is usually referred to as the Mopol gate.

Those accredited for the inauguration met security vehicles that were used to block the entrance to the National Assembly complex.

The accredited persons, including the media, protocol and support staff et al were re-direct­ed to access the complex from the Presidential Villa.

At the Villa gate, by the Supreme Court axis, only selected people with the inauguration tags were allowed entry. At a point, Villa security refused even people who had the tags on to ac­cess the National Assembly.

Security men, including those from the DSS, Police, Civil Defence as well as the Sergeant- At-Arms told media men who insisted on ac­cessing the complex from the Mopol gate that “the inauguration has been postponed.”

At exactly 9:52am, Maikasuwa, decked in ceremonial robe of bald and gold with the wig, entered the Senate chamber, waited for eight minutes and on the dot of 10:00am, banged the gavel to signal the commencement of the inau­guration by reading the president’s proclama­tion. There were only 57 senators seated. Some were outside the premises while others were at the ICC where they watched the session on live television.