News agency, Reuters has just revealed a plot by some powerful elements in the country to kidnap every Nigerian’s man of the moment, Prof. Attahiru Jega.
According to the report, the attempt by a former Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Elder Godsday Orubebe, on March 31 to scuttle the announcement of the March 28 presidential election results, was a plot to use hired thugs to kidnap the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission and consequently stall the electoral process.
Reuters however said it found no evidence to suggest that Jonathan, who accepted defeat in the election, was involved in the plot.
The news agency quoted unnamed pro-democracy advocates and a Nigeria-based diplomat as saying that one of Jega’s aides unearthed the plot.
It said that the aide had sent a text message to an independent voting monitor, “warning of an imminent threat to the electoral process.”
At that moment Jega was presiding over the announcement of the results, it became clear that APC was leading.
However, as Buhari’s lead grew, some PDP supporters from the Niger Delta, including Orubebe, decided on a final gamble: to create a disturbance in the main INEC hall and have “thugs snatch Jega from the stage,
Reutersquoted the Head of the Situation Room and the Abuja-based diplomat.
What the group planned to do after the abduction was unclear, they said.
“It was a desperate thing, mostly by a group of people from the Niger Delta who were in the room,” the Situation Room head said, describing events that unfolded publicly in the minutes after he received the SMS.
When Jega opened proceedings on the morning of March 31, Orubebe had grabbed a microphone and launched into an 11-minute tirade accusing Jega of bias.
“Mr. chairman, we have lost confidence in you,” he shouted, pushing away officials trying to make him surrender the microphone. “You are being very, very selective. You are partial,” he continued, surrounded by three or four supporters. “You are tribalistic. We cannot take it.”
At this point, according to the Head of the Situation Room and the diplomat, Jega’s security details were approached by unidentified individuals telling them to stand down but they declined.
“Some of the guards who had been guarding Jega for years demanded a written order,” the Head of the Situation Room said.
Jega later rebuked Orubebe, saying, “Let us not disrupt a process that has ended peacefully,” he said as Orubebe slumped in his chair.
Orubebe later congratulated Buhari on Twitter, expressing his “apologies to fellow Nigerians.”
