NASS Invasion: FG Planning To Twist Facts To Indict Us, Says Saraki
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SENATE President Abubakar Bukola Saraki and his Deputy , Ike Ekweremadu, have raised the alarm that the federal government has commenced the execution of a plot to implicate them and their colleagues in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for last Tuesday’s invasion and blockade of the premises of the National Assembly (NASS) by men of the Department of State Service (DSS).
In a statement signed by their media aides- Y usuph Olaniyonu and Uche Anichukwu- the two legislative leaders stated that after receiving the interim report submitted by the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr . Idris Ibrahim, the Presidency, yesterday, constituted a closet panel to review the report and submit a final recommendation.
The mandate of this closet panel, they alleged, is to turn facts on the head and blame the invasion on the two leaders of the Red Chamber of the National Assembly, who would 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.
The statement reads: “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-director general of the DSS, 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 the 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 destro y, suppress and incapacitate the opposition.
“This is their new tactic and plot, as we approach the period of the 2019 polls.”
They reiterated the position that the “coup” against democracy, as represented by last week’s in vasion, must be probed through an independent judicial commission of inquiry, which would produce a comprehensive report, insisting: “We reject any manipulated and fabricated in vestigation.”
The senate presiding officers added that they ha ve also uncovered a sinister plot in which the government plans to use the antigraft 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.