What security sources regarded as ‘security breach’ occurred at the precincts of the Presidential Villa, State House, Abuja on Thursday night, when the First Lady’s Aide-de-camp, Usman Shugaba, attempted to force President Muhammadu Buhari’s Special Assistant, Sabiu Yusuf, into self -isolation over COVID-19 fears.
State House sources told THISDAY that trouble started when Sabiu, President Buhari’s nephew, returned to his residence at the precincts of the Presidential Villa, just outside the Pilot gate, after a trip to Lagos where he had gone to meet his wife who had just delivered a new baby.
Citing COVID-19 protocols, sources said, the First Lady Aisha Buhari and three of her children, Zahra, Halima and Yusuf, accompanied by some of her security aides led by the Aide-de-Camp, on Thursday night went to the residence of Sabiu located just outside the Presidential Villa to demand that he should self-isolate for 14 days, so as not to endanger the first family.
The encounter was said to have degenerated into a heated argument as Sabiu insisted he was not the only aide to travel to Lagos saying that the new Chief of Staff, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, is in Lagos every weekend till he settles in Abuja, and wondered why the double standard requiring his self isolation for visiting his own wife who just delivered a new baby.
Sabiu, also known as ‘Tunde’ (believed to have been named after Late Gen. Tunde Idiagbon, Buhari’s deputy during his military regime in the 1980s), was however said to have returned home after the arguments.
As he got home, the first lady in company of her children raided the premises raining abuses, presidential sources who witnessed the incident said, leading to the escape of Sabiu after gunshots were fired by the First Lady’s ADC in an attempt to apprehend the President’s aide, who had to breach walls to run for his life and escape to the nearby residence of President Buhari’s cousin, Mamman Daura, where he spent the night.
THISDAY gathered that the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, after receiving security report on the incident on Friday where gunshots were fired in the precincts of the Presidential Villa, ordered the arrest of the Aide-de-camp to the first lady and all the security aides that accompanied her to Sabiu’s residence.
Their arrest, THISDAY learnt, was premised on the fact that firing of gunshots, no matter the provocation in the presidency, and around the president was a major ‘security breach’.
