Segun Atanda/
A leaked report of the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr Ibrahim Idris, on the blockade of the National Assembly on Tuesday by masked DSS operatives, has suggested that it was the handiwork of some ‘powerful politicians’.
The report suggests that they merely used the sacked Director General of the DSS, Lawal Daura, as a tool to accomplish their aim.
The report says the blockade was done with the intent to “incite and whip up the sentiment of the National Assembly members against the Federal Government of Nigeria”.
The IGP said Daura was not officially invited by the leadership of the National Assembly to send his hooded and masked men to mount the blockade on August 7 and there was no crime committed prior to the invasion.
He did so on a “claimed intelligence report that unauthorised persons were planning to smuggle “undisclosed weapons and incriminating items into the National Assembly Complex. He did not inform the Acting President, neither did he share the information with the Nigeria Police Force or other security agencies,” the report further disclosed.
And, to underscore the false premise of the so-called intelligence relied upon by Daura, he did not deploy anti-terrorist forces or EOD experts or specialists to the National Assembly, the IGP stated.
Instead Daura sent armed officers of the DSS, who were wearing masks to disguise their identities, and who acted more like “mercenaries, hired to carry out executions”.
The report concludes: “It is crystal clear that the principal suspect, Lawal Musa Daura may be acting the script of some highly placed politicians to achieve selfish political goals, hence his unilateral and unlawful decision to invade the `National Assembly Complex.”
See photos of original copies of the police report below:
Meanwhile, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has released a former Director-General of the Department of State Services, Mr Ita Ekpeyong, hours after his arrest.
EFCC officials supported by armed policemen had arrested Mr Ekpeyong on Thursday in his residence in Asokoro, Abuja.
In November 2017, officials of the DSS believed to be acting under the directives of his successor, Daura, prevented EFCC officials from arresting him.
At the time, he was reportedly wanted by the anti-graft agency for his alleged role in the arms scandal involving a former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retired).
Ekpenyong served as the head of the DSS from 2010 to 2015.
The action of the EFCC was sequel to the order by the Presidency for it to carry out proper investigation into how the huge cash said to have been released to security agencies in the country for the 2015 Presidential election was managed and three former security heads, who held strategic positions in the country, are to face questioning to determine their involvement or otherwise in expenditure of the cash.
Apart from Daura and Ekpenyong, a former Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency, Ayo Oke, is also pencilled down for investigation.
The order to subject the former security heads to scrutiny followed two days of extensive meeting between Nigeria’s Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, and the Acting Director General of the DSS, Matthew Seiyefa, and that of the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu.
The opening of an investigation into the roles played by the dismissed security head followed Tuesday’s sack of Lawal Daura, who had last November blocked EFCC operatives from gaining access into the Abuja homes of Ekpenyong and Oke for search.
Daura had argued at that time that security expenditure could not be subject of an investigation by the EFCC and that doing so would expose the security agencies to ridicule.
Emboldened by that argument, Daura prevented EFCC operatives who had taken vantage positions in the premises of the two men in Asokoro from entering their homes and searching them.
The Acting President is also reported to have ordered Seiyefa and Magu to work together and retrieve the cash from whoever was found to have dipped their hands into the till.
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