Exclusive: How Cabal’s plan to stop Tinubu inauguration was aborted

By Omolade Adegbuyi and Ologeh Joseph Chibu

There were high-level plots to stop the inauguration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu from being sworn in on May 29 last year, a reliable, top security official revealed to Irohinoodua on Tuesday. The plot was from his own party, the All Progressives Congress, (APC) with fringe support from a garment in the opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP).

The source said three major moves were made to ensure President Tinubu did not emerge as the No 1 citizen of Nigeria last year on May 29: The first was the  disruptive economic policies implemented by the former Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, (CBN), the second was the plot to disrupt the APC primary as soon as it became clear Tinubu was leading and the third was the plan to stop Tinubu from being sworn in as the President of Nigeria through a series of undercover plots that included the prospect of a military coup, the source said.

Irohinoodua was informed that the cabal in the Government of former President Mohammadu Buhari was responsible for the plot to stop Tinubu by all means necessary.

The source said before and on the day of the primary, a lot of plots were hatched which ranged from deliberate economic sabotage to demystify the APC by some APC leaders, in order to make the APC unpopular ahead of the election, storming the venue of the primary with armed gangs, disrupting the primary proceedings and creating unprecedented chaos. The last of the plots was a series of considerations that included cancelling the election and creating atmosphere for either a military intervention or an interim government.

‘The cabal called an emergency meeting while the APC primary was on-going. The resolution was that the primary must be stopped. They didn’t know how to go about it. They first considered armed groups storming the venue to cause commotion which would have led to the end of the primary and possibly cancellation of the entire process which would have led to the derailing of the entire process’, the expert said. He told Irohinoodua that the diabolical plots were scuttled by forces supporting democracy and the future of the country as against personal primitive agenda.

He said the leadership of the Directorate of State Security Service, (DSS), the Nigerian Intelligence Agency,(NIA) and some top military officers even from the North, stood their ground that they would not allow the democratic process to be annulled.

‘In this regard, credit goes to the professionalism of the DSS, the Army and the NIA who insisted that they would never succumb to any attempt to derail the election. They stood firmly. They saved Nigeria from turmoil,’ he said.

Our correspondent also learnt that the former first Lady, Mrs Aisha Buhari played a significant role to ensure the All Progressives Congress, (APC) primary was not scuttled and that she demonstrated rare courage in putting pressure on her husband not to listen to ‘hawks’ in the Presidency.

‘She was a heroin. She insisted on principle. She stood by the truth.She showed rare courage in a time of great adversary’ the source said.

When asked what the plan was aimed at achieving, he said the Cabal was motivated by two things: the fear of losing access to power which they believed was tied to power shift to the South and secondly, the fear of being probed by the imminent President Tinubu’s government for the billions of dollars which were stolen in the previous eight years.

The source said after the APC primary  election won by Tinubu, a section of the All Progressives Congress, (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) met and scheduled a meeting with Buhari to convince him that the Presidency should support the PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar.

‘They met Buhari in Aso Rock. They told him the only way to save the North was to support Atiku. Again, the former first Lady and some Northern leaders like Abdullahi Ganduje heard about this.They rose to the occasion and mobilised against the plot. The DSS and the NIA also played a professional and diligent role to stop the manipulations,’

He said the third phase was after President Tinubu won the election. ‘They knew if Tinubu won the primary, there was nobody that could stop him given his network across the country. The next step was to consider a big chaos to topple the regime with the knowledge of some people in power. Thanks to the professionalism of the DSS and the NIA that stood for the people  in defence of democracy, human liberty and justice,’ the source said.

According to him, the former Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele was ready to provide the resources to sabotage democracy for his own interest. He said the change of naira notes, the removal of oil subsidy were all designed to blackmail Buhari’s successor by creating a chain of landmines that would make it difficult for the government to succeed and even to ensure the government stumbled. In March last year after the Presidential election, there were speculations that the Presidential Guards had been put on high alert following unusual movements. The Nigerian Armed Forces later debunked the claim. In a related statement, the former Director of DSS, Mr Dennis Amachree urged politicians to take rumours of coup seriously by addressing the hardship of the country.     

He had warned ‘Nigeria is too mature togo the way of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali because the solution to our present malaise is not by military coups. A concerted effort by all stakeholders will be the way to go, with urgent immediacy.’ On March 29, the DSS also warned on plans by politicians to undermine the country’s democracy. The spokesperson, Peter Afunaya said some non-state actors have been devising means to halt the  inauguration of President Bola Tinubu to install interim government.

The agency said the plotters were considering ‘endless violent mass protests in major cities to warrant a declaration of state of emergency. Another is to obtain frivolous court injunctions to forestall the inauguration of new executive administrations and legislative houses at the federal and state levels.’

It was the first time in recent memory that the secret service would come up with such a bold stamp to frustrate anti-democracy elements.