Vanguard reliably gathered that attempt by the Presidential Assistant, Sabiu Tunde Yusuf to find his way out of the Aso Rock premises led to shooting as he struggled to zoom off.
A Villa staff who claimed to have witnessed the incident told Vanguard that Police officers attached to the office of the First Lady, Dr. Aisha Buhari and Sabiu came out through the artillery gate to the park opposite former Officers Mess.
The source said, “At about 6pm, I saw about four Police officers following Sabiu, he was wearing blue caftan and barefooted. We were wondering whether anything had happened to the President as Sabiu is a personal aide to the President and very influential in the government.
“They (Police) went to his house inside here (House Eight) and scaled through the fence to arrest him. Likely he had an already stationed vehicle waiting for him there before he scaled through the fence. Meanwhile, the police had their own people waiting for him there also.
“All exit points in the villa were blocked because of him.
“There was a waiting one door vehicle with a driver and one other person. Immediately Sabiu managed to enter inside the vehicle, the police officers started struggling with the driver even as the car was on motion and it nearly hit other vehicles at the park.
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” The driver managed to control the steering even as the Police Officers from the First Lady office made attempts to stop without success. The Police then ordered that the barricade that leads to the entrance get should be closed as they were shouting close the gate. Unfortunately, the security personnel at the gate had closed for the day and the barricade was up.
“As the Sabiu vehicle crossed the gate, there were gunshots about three times but the vehicle managed to escape and sped off.
“There was confusion everywhere that made the security personnel majorly made up of operatives of Department of State Services, DSS, who were on duty at the Pilot gate to rush to the scene.”
However, there were conflicting reports on the gunshots at the State House which was unusual and only witnessed during the military coup.
While one account has it that the shots were targeted at the tires of the vehicle to deflate them so that Sabiu could be rounded up, another account has it that the gunshots were fired on the air to frighten and stop the vehicle from escaping.
Besides, there were also conflicting reports on what led to the confusion. An account initially alleged that Sabiu had travelled out to London on a business trip with a well-known oil magnet from Lagos State, another one said that he went to visit his family in Lagos as the wife was said to have delivered a baby recently.
Sabiu who is popularly known as Tunde, a name he took after Tunde Idiagbon, the second in command to then Major General Muhammadu Buhari during the military regime is said to be very close to the President and highly respected at the Villa.
A Villa source told Vanguard, “Tunde is very powerful here. He is a nephew to the President and very close to the late Chief of Staff, Mallam Abba Kyari. Governors, ministers and all the who is who respect him so much.”
It was reported that on Thursday night, the First Lady accompanied by her children – Zahra, Halima and Yusuf, – took a team of policemen led by her Aide-De-Camp to forcefully confront Tunde following an earlier heated disagreement over his refusal to self-isolate after his trip to Lagos to see his wife, who had just given birth to a boy.
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