February 1, 2010
The N2 billion bribes offered to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, yielded fruit today at the resumed hearing of the house in Abuja. The representatives, whose meeting ended on a rowdy note, could not agree on the mode of the resolution to be passed regarding the absence of Yar’Adua from office since November 23 2009. Saharareporters had exclusively reported how members of Yar’Adua's kitchen cabinet members moved in to corrupt the leadership of the National Assembly with N2 billion handed to the Speaker Bankole, and N4 billion to the president of the Senate, David Mark.Since it was reported last week that some 200 lawmakers had signed a petition to “impeach Yar'Adua” for his failure to transmit a letter to the National Assembly concerning foreign medical treatment, which would have permitted the Vice-President to head the government in an acting capacity, the kitchen cabinet had become jittery, and moved their resources to shut the restive lawmakers down.
Saharareporters investigations revealed that since the Speaker reached out to the dissident ringleaders with juicy incentives, they have mostly disappeared. Last Friday, they failed to place an advert in five newspapers declaring their intention and revealing the names of their signatories and clarifying their stand on the issue. Some of the leaders of the insurgent group showed up for the first time today in the house where they reportedly sang a different tune after they had adequately been taken care of.
Meanwhile, to keep the restive groups guessing, the kitchen cabinet activated its misinformation mechanism yesterday by claiming that it was broke and couldn’t fund the national rallies that Saharareporters first revealed would take place in six cities across Nigeria including a "national rally" to be led by former Senator Ibrahim Mantu and disgraced former Nigeria Labour Congress chair, Pascal Bafyau. The duo settled for a press conference instead.
Also yesterday, the media was fed with the rumor that Yar’Adua was either on his way to Abuja or had actually secretly arrived. This propaganda, frequently deployed since Yar’Adua left for Jeddah, helped the Kitchen cabinet members confuse the restive lawmakers.
As earlier revealed by Saharareporters, the plan by the kitchen cabinet members was to use the judiciary as the tool to sweep aside all legal opposition to Yar’Adua’s absence and apparent incapacitation. Yesterday, the lawsuit filed by Femi Falana asking the court to declare Yar’adua unfit was adjourned by Justice Adamu Bello’s registrar till March 1, 2010, an unprecedented one month adjournment for a case filed with urgency.
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If and when the House of Representatives convenes tomorrow, the Nigerian nation would likely be given a repeat version of the useless resolution by the Senate last week in which it asked Yar’adua to transmit the constitutionally-required letter, but failed to give him a deadline. Lawmakers already paid by the kitchen cabinet said that the house needed to wait for the “delegation” it set up to visit Yar’Adua in Saudi Arabia about three weeks ago. In order to fool the house, the members of the "delegation" were asked for their passports and the house protocol staff reportedly went to apply for visas on their behalf.
When the delegation was first set up Saharareporters revealed that Yar’adua’s wife prevented them from visiting Jeddah, claiming that there was no need since her husband was on her way home. The same trick is likely to be deployed again, or the "delegation," much like others that allegedly visited Jeddah, will return empty handed and claim they met with Yar’Adua and that he is recuperating and doing well. In the past, the kitchen cabinet had proceeded by transmitting information they claimed came from Yar’Adua. They also offered a fake signature of the 2009 Supplementary budget.
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