Investigations by Saturday Vanguard have revealed that last Wednesday’s invasion of the National Assembly was a scripted plot to force the reinstatement of Senator Ovie Omo-Agege and instigate the removal of the Senator Bukola Saraki leadership of the Senate.
It was learned that the conspiracy stirred by 15 senators was directed at provoking a confrontation that would have led to a pandemonium. Three vocal senators, who the dissenting senators hoped to trigger a fight that would have led to the pandemonium, were, however, absent at the sitting.
Senate sources privy to the development told Saturday Vanguard that the 15 senators, who planned the insurrection at the Abuja residence of a former governor presently serving in the Senate had hoped that Senators Dino Melaye, APC, Kogi West, Enyinnanya Abaribe, PDP, Abia South or Obinna Ogba, PDP, Ebonyi would have engaged the invaders and thus triggered a commotion that would have led to the invasion of the Senate chambers by security services. That meeting in the night followed an earlier evening meeting at the National Assembly complex, Senate sources said.
However, by happen stance, the three senators, who the group of 15 hoped to trigger the crisis were absent that Wednesday, thereby preventing the envisaged crisis. “To achieve the dual purpose of removing the Senate leadership, especially with the absence of the President of the Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki, who is on an official trip to Washington, USA, and the reinstatement of Senator Omo-Agege, it was concluded that the mace should be forcefully taken away,” a source revealed.
Calculation of the plotters The source added that: “The calculation of the plotters was that some hot-blooded Senators like Senator Dino Melaye and Senator Obinna Ogba would not allow the mace to go without making serious trouble.
In the process, there would be fisticuffs and pandemonium in the red chambers,” the source close to the Senate leadership added. “The mace would not only be taken away, but the armed invaders would use the opportunity to deal with some ‘heady’ Senators’, including the presiding officer, Ike Ekweremadu.
However, it happened that Senators Dino, Ogba, and Enyinnaya Abaribe were not on in the chamber when the assailants came.” It was further gathered that the expectation was that following the mayhem a motion for adjournment of the sitting to allow heads to cool would have followed. The plan was that after the adjournment, the group of 15 senators would return to the Senate chambers with the mace earlier grabbed and hold a sitting during which they would have suspended the Senate leadership and elected another leadership.
The first task after that would have been to lift the suspension on Senator Omo-Agege. “I am thanking God that Dino was not around because by the time he came he was so angry that the thugs were allowed to go away with the mace. He was saying that they would have killed him with the mace that Wednesday,” the source revealed to Saturday Vanguard.
Despite insinuations of the alleged role of security services in the plot, Saturday Vanguard has not been able to lay a direct connection between any of the security services and the 15 senators involved.
It was nevertheless gathered that the Divisional Police Officer of the National Assembly was not taken into confidence of the plot to invade the National Assembly. The DPO, it was learned, was sold the dummy that the Shiites who had been protesting in Abuja were coming to the National Assembly that day.
It was when he went to organise reinforcement for the National Assembly that Senator Omo-Agege came in. Before Omo-Agege came in, a senator from the North-Central and a key leader of the Buhari Parliamentary Support Group to which Omo-Agege belongs had stepped out to make a call.
“We suspected that he went to inform the group that the DPO had left and that they could come,” the source added. Saturday Vanguard further gathered that it was when the DPO returned from the gate where he went for mobilisation that he discovered what happened and directed that the main gate into the National Assembly be locked. However, the thugs had left the National Assembly premises unchallenged at the time. (Vanguard Ngr)