REVIEW… That failed coup at the National Assembly

For the umpteenth time, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) demonstrated some level of incompetence and inability to successfully manage an issue it deemed critical to its survival, as it mismanaged what ought to be a legislative process that would have terminated the tenancy of Bukola Saraki as Senate President.

First, the plot to impeach Saraki penultimate week by using the Police to impede his movement and that of his deputy and by doing so, allow the Ahmed Lawan-led ‘rebels’ to do the yeoman job, failed after Saraki beat the plotters to their game.

After that embarrassing handling of the plot, the Police High Command came out quickly to inform the world that it was not aware of Police involvement in the issue. It also denied that Policemen used in the show were not known to the force.

The second plot, executed a few days ago using the Police and masked operatives of the Department of State Security (DSS), also collapsed like a house built on a seashore. According to details of the plot, Saraki and senators of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), were to be denied access to the legislative chambers while their APC counterparts are allowed access, through a backdoor, to do the needful. The poor execution of the mandate cost Director-General of the DSS, Lawal Daura, a blood-relation of President Muhammadu Buhari, his job.

The Spins

In the aftermath of failure of both ‘coups’ against the Saraki senate, APC media organs and sympathetic acolytes, stormed the media space with narratives to show that rather than as thought, the DSS leadership and the Police were indeed working for Saraki. The first narrative was that Saraki staged the first attempt at his office and later blamed the executive. But they hid the fact that APC senators were to move from a hotel in Abuja, in a convoy, into NASS and execute the assignment.

The same narrative was deployed in defence of the executive and APC leadership. The aim of the narratives was to show that neither the Buhari-led executive nor the APC leadership was after Saraki’s office.

Unfortunately, as those narratives were being spewed, National Chairman of the APC, Adams Oshiomhole, was shown in recorded audio-visuals that went viral on social media platforms, promising APC stalwarts at a meeting that all government and leadership positions occupied by PDP members will be retrieved and given to APC members. Oshiomhole’s comments lend credence to views that the party was indeed behind the failed ‘coups’ which has robbed off negatively on the Buhari government.

Read also: SARAKI: We won’t descend into the gutter with APC

Though video recording of an APC member of the National Assembly being booed as he walked majestically past a DSS human barricade at NASS had gone viral, there were still narratives that ‘no APC lawmaker was sighted at NASS during the blockade’. Such narrative found support in later comments by some appointees of government who tried to spin the embarrassment away and against Saraki.

But the public is already is aware that the DSS, which had become notorious for clandestine sting operations recently, is under control of the presidency and not the legislature and as such, the Senate President lacks constitutional powers to order the DSS into such action as they were engaged in during the NASS blockade.

Saraki Persona

Many analysts contend that theAPC spin doctors failed to see in their spins a positive story on the Saraki persona. By ascribing to Saraki the powers to use the Police, which leadership is at loggerheads with his office over the treatment meted out to one of his acolytes, Sen. Dino Melaye, and the DSS to pull such stunts, analysts argue that the ruling party is insinuating, that Saraki is smarter than those in the presidency. They have inadvertently created for Saraki, a larger than life persona, with their narratives that he pulled the stunts.

The effect of this will likely come to play during campaigns for the next round of election that would produce the 2019-2023 set of leaders. Already, the APC and the presidency are suffering huge image problems, no thanks to the embarrassing narratives of this spinners who have failed to place the presidency and the party above petty politicking.

Daura Goes Back to Daura

Outcome of the two failed ‘coup’ attempts was the firing of Daura by Ag. President Yemi Osinbajo. Osinbajo had become embarrassed by the crude handling of the exercise which was reportedly orchestrated and executed without his knowledge. Daura however got the other side of Osinbajo when he reportedly told the Ag. President, on telephone, that the matter was beyond him (Osinbajo).

It was gathered that the arrogance with which he responded to the Ag. President, more or less meant that the Ag. President did not matter in the game the ‘coupists’ played.

A further summon on him to meet, and brief the Ag. President on why government was embarrassed with the NASS blockade, got the lackadaisical side of Daura, who believing that his allegiance was to the person of Buhari, and not the constitution or the office of president, foot-dragged in responding to the summon. He created an impression in the mind of the Ag. President to the effect that he could not be ordered around so easily by anyone else except Buhari.

Irked by the development, the Ag. President, it was gathered, made up his mind on the situation and decided to will the big stick on the ground of ‘either he goes or I quit’. It was learnt that Daura did not return to his office as DG, DSS as answering the summon almost three hours afterwards, left the Ag. President with no other option than to strip him of his powers, decimate his vaunted ego and revert him to his state of being prior to 2015 presidential elections.

The humiliation did not end there. Daura did not immediately return to his office after he had read the letter terminating his appointment. Unknown to him, details of the letter had trended on social media even before he received it. His uncle, Buhari, also became aware of the development after Daura had taken possession of the letter. He was not allowed to return to his previous office as he had become ex-DG, DSS.

Operatives of the DSS went into wild jubilation when the news filtered in. They assisted in clearing his office and ushered his replacement in. He was reportedly disliked by the operatives because of the way he allegedly managed their affairs and treated them. Many accuse him of high-handedness and of withholding their entitlements without justification. Daura ended his sojourn at Yellow House not necessarily on account of the embarrassing NASS blockade but more because of his arrogance and disdain for the Ag. President.

By Femi Qudus….

 

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