Abuja based lawyer and human rights activist, Dr. Kayode Ajulo, has charged the Federal Government to ensure that all those found culpable on the siege to the National Assembly are investigated and tried for treason. He offered $10k (about N3.5million) for credible information as to the identity of the principal actors, while calling for an independent probe into the saga.
Ajulo in a statement in Abuja on Thursday explained it is not enough to sack Lawal Daura as the Director General of the State Security Service (SSS), but rather called for sober reflection and vigilance such that a travesty of that nature never happens again.
“First, while it is worth the while to commend Acting President Yemi Osinabjo SAN for the prompt response in arresting the apparent drift to anarchy, it is germane to stress that it is not enough to celebrate the sack of Lawal Daura as Director General of the SSS. Rather, the unfortunate incident not only calls for sober reflection but vigilance as well as the interrogation of the fundamentals of what led to the national embarrassment and desecration of the symbol of our democracy,” the statement read.
According to him, “it is certainly obvious that there are more questions begging for answers for us as a nation so as to learn lessons from the patent global embarrassment. It is in this regard that there is the urgent need for an independent inquiry into the said attack on our democracy.
He raised several posers;
“Is it in accordance with due process in domestic security and intelligence services for the DG of the SSS to singlehandedly direct officers on such a major assignment? Who and who perfected the deployment with him within and outside the SSS hierarchy?”
Ajulo, who is the chairman, Board of Trustees, Egalitarian Mission for Africa, a non-profit leadership hub, asked further: “Is it true that a known senator and former governor in league with some senators and chieftains of a particular party were in the know of the deployment and facilitated the ‘attempted coup’ on the National Assembly with ‘resources?’
“Confident that there are answers to these and many other questions which are yet to be answered by the ‘express’ sack of Mr. Daura by the Federal Government, I am offering $10k for credible information in this regard while calling on the international community to weigh in on the Nigerian Government to institute an independent probe of the siege to the NASS.”
He said the membership of the probe panel should be drawn from civil society, NBA, media and government representatives “to unearth those that facilitated the blockade, those who held meetings with the erstwhile boss of the SSS and to what end.”
The former National Secretary of the Labour Party stressed that the inquiry is important in the face of the attempt to abrogate democracy in some states of the federation like Benue, Ondo, Ekiti by the police without any reprimand from those who should do so.