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National Assembly meets over rising political tension

Published

6 years ago

June 5, 2018

Olu Emmanuel

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DSS restores Saraki aides
Osinbajo mediates between Saraki loyalists, Buhari

The two chambers of the National Assembly will on Tuesday afternoon hold a joint session over the political tension in the country, National Daily has gathered.

This is an outcome of a separate meeting held on Monday by some members of the national assembly to discuss the best way to address “the assault” on its members by the executive.

Meanwhile, the Department of State Services (DSS) on Tuesday morning restored some of the security aides of Senate President Bukola Saraki.

Nine of the 15 operatives were withdrawn on Sunday, but four have now been asked to return to work.

This followed a series of interventions by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo who expressed concern over the growing tension in the polity.

Recall that half of the DSS operatives attached to the senate president’s office were withdrawn on Sunday — the day police invited Saraki to answer questions over the Offa bank robbery of April 5, 2018 in which 33 persons, including pregnant women and 12 police officers.

National Daily also gathered that the operatives withdrawn from the speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, are yet to return to their position.

Reacting to a report attributed to the DSS denying withdrawing its operatives, a member of the House of Reps said “I can confirm to you that the DSS has withdrawn 50 percent of its security details attached to the speaker. If they say they didn’t withdraw them, the details that left were they raptured?”

Sources told National Daily that the polity got heated when the Senate President, Bukola Saraki was invited by the Police for questioning as a “person of interest” in the probe of the Offa heist.

On getting wind of this, Lawal Shuaibu, deputy national chairman (north) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), swiftly sought audience with Osinbajo.

After Shuaibu’s meeting, Osinbajo, according to presidency sources, also met with Buhari and expressed his worries that the efforts to reconcile the nPDP bloc might be compromised by the unfolding developments.

Osinbajo then met with Idris and Lawan Daura, the DSS director-general, on Monday over the unfolding political crisis.

It was also resolved that while Saraki is not above the law, he should be given the benefit of respect as the nation’s number three citizen and allowed to respond to the allegations in writing.

Osinbajo’s proposal was accepted and police later announced that Saraki would no longer have to report physically but should send a written response “within 48 hours”.