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How a failed plot by Nigeria’s secret police vigorously shook the Buhari Presidency

Abuja, Nigeria’s seat of governance, was barely roaring to life Tuesday morning when the country was jolted with news of a blockade of the National Assembly by operatives of the Department of State Security (DSS)

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Abuja, Nigeria’s seat of governance, was barely roaring to life Tuesday morning when the country was jolted with news of a blockade of the National Assembly by operatives of the Department of State Security (DSS).

The men, fully clad in combat wears and clutching assault rifles, stood menacingly, and held their grounds while stranded lawmakers fretted as they were denied entry to their offices. Only one of the masked men managed to utter, ‘Orders from above’ as reason for the stand-off.

The embarrassing incident was captured on live television.

The day before had offered an inkling into what would transpire. Senate President Bukola Saraki had informed that, in response to demands by the Buhari administration, the leadership of the National Assembly would meet Tuesday to consider some matters of urgent national interest.

The lawmakers had been on recess and were hoping to return to legislative duties late September. Among the issues that required the attention of the legislature were requests by the Executives for funding of the country’s electoral commission, INEC, and a supplementary budget for 2018.

The vacation itself had been hurriedly put together. It came almost minutes after some 52 lawmakers from both the Senate and House of Representatives upset the nation’s power structure by defecting from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to the main opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Critics have argued that the vacation was forced to prevent the Presidency and the ruling party from contemplating an immediate response. The handicap was not to last for long. Plot to undo Saraki, who himself had joined the defection gale and become leader of the camp, was activated clandestinely.

The Chairman of the ruling party, Adams Oshiomhole, fired the first shot, calling on Saraki to ‘honorably’ relinquish the ‘crown’. Other members of APC were not as diplomatic and made veiled references to impeachment plans, insisting that it ran against common norm and convention for a minority party to produce the leadership of the legislature.

Monday night had seen both parties building scenarios on what the opposing camp could be working on. While the APC feared PDP could embarrass the Presidency with an impeachment move, the latter was almost certain that the Senate President was going to be removed.

By Tuesday, mutual suspicions had run so deep. This was not helped by confirmed reports of planned defection of the Minority Leader, Godswill Akpabio, from PDP to APC.

Speculations had been rife that Akpabio was being positioned to take over the position of the Senate President.

The drama of Tuesday reached a climax when the bunch of APC legislators boycotted the meeting called by the Senate President, Saraki, opting instead to hold a caucus assembly elsewhere in the nation’s capital. While they retreated, their PDP counterparts were left to confront the siege by DSS operatives, spurring speculations that the Presidency was remotely linked to the ugly scenes that had played out.

With uproar from the media, and global attention turned to Nigeria, attempts to breach the constitution caved in. The platoon of secret policemen were quickly withdrawn, leaving Acting President Yemi Osinbajo to tackle what many have now described as an assault on Nigeria’s democracy.

Osinbajo’s immediate move to mange the image disaster was to order the sack and arrest of the Director-General of DSS, Lawal Daura, who had been fingered as the unseen hand in the Tuesday fiasco that brought the country so much shame.

In a terse statement made via his twitter handle, Osinbajo’s media aide, Laolu Akande, said, “AgP has directed the termination of the appointment of the DG of DSS Lawal Musa Daura.

“Mr Daura has been directed to handover to the most senior officer of the State Security Service until further notice”

He added, “the unlawful act which was done without the knowledge of the Presidency is condemnable and completely unacceptable.

“By this statement, Professor Osinbajo is consequently assuring Nigerians that all persons within the law enforcement apparatus who participated in this travesty will be identified and subjected to appropriate disciplinary action”.

Many have hailed Osinbajo’s initiative but not a few are worried that he may be ruffling some feathers given that the sacked Daura is not just an appointee of incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari but also a very close kinsman.

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While Buhari is expected to be back from vacation in a couple days, his media aide, Femi Adesina, addressing the press on Wednesday said, “the Presidency is one”, in obvious reference to insinuations that Osinbajo may not have secured his principal’s not before firing his appointee.

Analysts argue that the full import of Daura’s sack can only be felt if Buhari returns to office and sustains the Vice President’s effort at enforcing constitutionalism and rule of law.

The battle against impunity remains a huge challenge. Buhari will resume from leave to meet the case of Benue and Akwa Ibom States whose accounts have been frozen by the anti-graft agency, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Close watchers believe that the dilemma of both states may not be far from the fact they had been caught up in the defection saga.

APC and PDP continue to trade blames over the National Assembly fracas, with each side accusing the other of recruiting the secret police in pursuit of party agenda.

Politics

UN appoints Nigeria’s Ahonsi as its Türkiye resident coordinator

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Babatunde Ahonsi of Nigeria has been appointed as the United Nations resident coordinator in Türkiye, pending the approval of his host government.

The United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, announced the appointment of the decades-long experienced diplomat on Saturday.

Ahonsi has experience in international development acquired within and outside the UN, among which was his role as Resident Coordinator in Sierra Leone where he coordinated and facilitated the UN’s operational activities for development in the country.

“He has led the UN country team and ensured system-wide accountability on the ground for the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework.

“He has also coordinated UN support to Sierra Leone in its implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the UN Secretary General’s Prevention Agenda.

“Prior to this, he served UN Resident Coordinator a.i. in China from June-September 2020.

“In addition, he served as UNFPA Representative in China/Country Director for Mongolia from January 2017 to June 2020, and as UNFPA Representative in Ghana from 2014-2016.

“Between 1997 and 2014, he held senior management positions with the Ford Foundation (covering West Africa) and Population Council (covering Nigeria) overseeing reproductive health, women’s empowerment, and youth development programmes and initiatives. He had also lectured at federal universities in Ilorin, Calabar, and Lagos, Nigeria during the 1980s and 1990s”, the UN said.

Since joining the UN in October 1960, Nigeria and Nigerians have played key roles in the global body. In 2013, Nigeria contributed the fifth largest number of peacekeepers to the United Nations peacekeeping operations.

Nigeria most recently had a temporary seat on the UN Security Council for two years, from 2014 to 2015.

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Politics

UN Security Council lifts 30-year-old arms ban on Somalia 

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The UN Security Council (UNSC) has ended 31 years of armed restrictions on Somalia’s government forces, which prevented the country from upgrading its military.

The lifting of the arms embargo on Somalia allows the country to freely buy new weapons, as the council in New York voted 14-1 to do so, with France abstaining. Restrictions on the transfer of weapons or supplies to terrorists affiliated with Al Shabaab remain.

According to the council, the federal government may order and buy weapons from any legitimate retailer in the world. However, for the UN Sanctions Committee on Somalia to verify the weapons, it must provide a list of them.

A member of the council, China, faulted this conditional approval, telling the session that Somalia was being made to comply with a rule that many in the West were disobeying.

Somalia has been constrained by this UN decision amidst the country’s quest for lasting peace in the face of internal wranglings and terrorist activities. In September, Somalia asked the UN to pause a planned drawdown of 3,000 African Union peacekeepers for three months to allow its security forces time to regroup after a militant attack forced them to withdraw from several recently captured towns.

Somalia’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Abukar Osman, who addressed the Council, commended the move and noted that the lifting of the embargo would enable his government to equip the forces.

“It allows us to confront security threats, including those posed by Al Shabaab,” he said in a briefing to the Council, promising that his country would also reform the management of weapons to ensure they did not fall in the wrong hands.

In his official reaction, Somalia’s President, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, stressed that “from now on, our country is free to purchase any sort of weapon we want from the world. Weapons in government hands will not pose a threat to our people and the world”.

“This decision comes at a very crucial time as a nation and people since we are in a war to eliminate Kharijites (Al Shabaab) from the country,” the National Intelligence and Security Agency said in a statement.

“It comes at a time when efforts are ongoing to form an army capable of taking on the general security responsibility of the country”, it added.

In January 1992, the UN Security Council imposed an arms embargo on Somalia. In February 2007, the embargo was amended to allow arms supplies to Somali Government Forces, but maintained a ban on sales to the country’s Islamist militants.

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