News
Did Godsday Orubebe Really try to Abduct Attahiru Jega?
The world will never forget Godsday Orubebe, the PDP agent who tried to disrupt the collation of presidential election results.
According to a Reuters report obtained by Punch, in addition to causing confusion on that day, Orubebe had also planned to abduct INEC chairman, Attahiru Jega.
The report states that:
The main part of Orubebe’s action, according to Reuters on Thursday, was a plot to use hired thugs to kidnap the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, and consequently stall the electoral process.
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.”
Reuters said it pieced the information together from the text message, events on the ground during the announcement of the results and interviews with pro-democracy advocates and diplomats in Abuja.
It added that when the independent voting monitor sent the SMS, he hoped the outside world would hear of the plot and the text of the message .
“Fellow countrymen, Nigeria on Trial,” read the SMS sent on the morning of March 31 to the head of the Situation Room, an Abuja-based coalition of human rights groups and pro-democracy advocates monitoring the elections.
“Plans are on storm [sic] the podium at the ICC Collation Centre and disrupt the process. Nobody is sure what will happen. Please share this as widely as possible,” the text read further…
