The dominant strain in the narratives around the failed coup against the National Assembly on Tuesday, 8th August 2018 isolates Malam Lawal Daura, the Director-General of the Department of State Security (DSS) as a lone ranger on a bold and audacious adventure. His bosses, the President and the Acting President say he was acting without their authorization. Other security agencies are putting miles between them and him. The ruling party, the APC, disclaims him in emphatic terms, and even hints that was in the service of the opposition. His organization paused briefly from its celebration of his ouster to say it finds no evidence of collusion or instigation behind this breathtaking gambit. As the magnitude of the attempt to destroy the legislature sinks into a nation hardened by chronic decay in its key values, processes and institutions, a few voices are rising to challenge this strain which leaves the spotlight firmly fixed on quite possibly the most powerful man under President Buhari’s administration.
Going by antecedents alone, few will challenge the argument that Daura could have conceived and attempted this affront alone. His cup is brimming with spectacular assaults on perceived enemies of the state (read: President Buhari). Other organs of state such as the military, Police and EFCC have charted similar courses, drawing inspiration from a man who could get away with anything. As he carved out massive space in the presidency and within the security and law and order community, he single-handedly decided the hierarchy of influence, kept out rival agencies, routinized the defiance of court orders, assaulted the integrity of senior judges and the judiciary, opposed the president’s nominee for the top job at EFCC twice, stopped arrests of suspects, negotiated relief for other suspects, kept the Minister of Justice on a short leash and generally served as enforcer-in- chief for Buhari’s weak administration. He provided a backbone to an administration that lacked a structured distribution of power, responsibilities and influence. The more he demonstrated the triumph of impunity over rule of law, the more President Buhari appears to have yielded the virtual running of the state to him. He was a ranking member and the face of a handful of aides and one or two shadowy characters without defined positions who wielded awesome powers around a president they appear, rather sadly, to have read very well.
Nonetheless, it will be dangerous to put down the attempted coup as another milestone in the trajectory of infamy which Daura has been allowed to chart. It is bad enough that he had exploited the vacuous contraption that is the presidency, but it will be unforgivable if he is allowed to bear this cross alone. Opportunists who tagged behind the reputation and muscle of Daura to secure a slippery political goal must be exposed and be made to pay the price. Starting from the most improbable theory that he was a Saraki mole who attempted a coup for the hardened Senate President, we must dig deeper if for the only reason that the Buhari presidency has made all things possible, particularly the tendency for friends and enemies to swap places at whims of one or two fixers.
A potentially more productive route of enquiry would be the series of meetings held between Daura, APC leadership, APC Senators and officials from the presidency to arrest the damage which the defection of Saraki, APC governors and legislators was causing to the APC. After the spirited efforts to stop the defections, it had become public knowledge that the administration and the ruling party had become desperate to stop the hemorrhaging from the National Assembly. Blockades, arrests, invitations by police and EFCC had all been thrown in to stop Saraki and legislators in their tracks. The National Assembly rushed into a two months recess bleeding from a fight that left both the APC and the PDP claiming victory. APC raised its own hands to claim majority and the moral right to remove Saraki as Senate President. PDP claimed the prize for bloodying APC beyond recognition, and insisted that the constitution and its numbers will protect Saraki. The failure of the Assembly to consider and approve the Supplementary Budget which included the funding for INEC’s election requirement before its stampeded recess provided the excuse to push for a change in the leadership of the Senate.
No one should play down the significance of the outrageous attempt to secure an illegal change in the leadership of the Senate by Daura. If he could risk a coup that was bound to be challenged in a manner that plunges the pillar of democracy in an irretrievable crisis, he could have done worse. If the President, the Acting President, the police, other security agencies were either unaware of the attempt, or were incapable of stopping it, then the nation is in even more trouble than it thinks. We have to ask who is in charge of national security, how one man could muster enough confidence to undertake a dangerous maneuver that could threaten the democratic process, and above all, who is really running the country.
Credit is being given to Acting President Osinbanjo for firing Daura. This is misplaced. First, his run-ins with Daura are public stuff, and a more principled and courageous No.2 would have demanded an indulgent president to choose between the two of them a lot earlier. Second, it amounts to a virtual cover-up to ask the police and DSS to investigate Daura. The leadership of Nigeria Police is the embodiment of impunity and a distinguished lackey of Daura. DSS cannot be a judge in a case in which it is the principal suspect. E.F.C.C has just been relieved of a major nemesis, and cannot be fair in judging Daura.
The only thing for President Buhari to do is to set up a judicial panel of enquiry into this contemptuous assault on our constitution. Going forward, the executive branch must endeavor to steer clear of politics within the legislature. Let Saraki sink or swim on the basis of the law and the politics he plays with his colleagues. Since nothing appears improbable under this administration, a note of warning should be sounded: under no circumstances should the nation be insulted and plunged into deeper crises by recalling Daura…Just in case the President changes his mind.
