How sacked DSS boss, Daura plotted NASS takeover with hooded 100-man strike force

Lawal Daura

Information of how the deposed Director general of the department of state services, Lawal Daura, plotted and executed the invasion of the national assembly on Tuesday, thereby effectively stalling the emergency meeting of the lawmakers, have emerged.

The lawmakers were to take into account the approximately N228 billion budget submitted via Independent National Electoral Commission for the 2019 general elections and other crucial spending approvals for the country throughout the aborted emergency sitting. The sacked DSS boss, who hails from the same town with President Muhammadu Buhari, deployed no fewer than 100 heavily armed DSS operatives to cordon off the national assembly premises some hours to the meeting. To make the operations complete-proof, Daura handed the 100-strong team over to the command of a senior operative, an assistant director, to steer the operation.

It was learnt that most of the operatives, who were drawn from their locations at 1am on Tuesday, did not understand why they had been hurriedly relocated, where they were being deployed to and for what cause till they arrived the precincts of the imposing national assembly complex in the wee hours. A top source said that even though embattled Daura had informed the Inspector general of Police, Ibrahim Idris, of the plan to effect massive deployment of DSS operatives to put siege to the NASS, and actually pleaded with him to aid the operation with his men, the police chief declined to contribute additional policemen for the ‘operation’. “What the IGP told Daura was that he had enough police officers and men presently manning the NASS and did not need to install extra personnel there,” the top official said on Tuesday. “That became the explanation, which the IGP also tendered to the acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, who summoned both Daura and Idris to the Villa to explain their roles in the siege at the NASS,” the source added. “The acting President was convinced that the IGP did not mobilize his men to the legislature and that was why he was not sacked together with the DG DSS,” the source explained.