Already the Inspector General of Police (IGP) has been ordered to deploy anti riot squads to firmly crush the demonstrations in hotspots like Lagos, Osun, Abuja and Benin City beginning from Wednesday.
To justify the proposed use of what they called “adequate force” the report which was submitted to the President on Saturday night had recommended the discrediting of the uprising by using undercover security agents and thugs to introduce mayhem and extreme violence into the otherwise peaceful action.
“It is reasoned that once the protest had been subverted by the government agents, the crusade would lose sympathy and support among Nigerians and even the international community would be expected to understand why it was necessary to use optimum force to quell the revolt.” a top security source revealed to our editors last night.
Furthermore it was recommended that pro government groups should be mobilised in numbers that will effectively overwhelm the multitude of demonstrators particularly in the federal capital with the support and protection of security agents in other to discourage and evict the “ENDSARS” activists from the streets.
The Kogi State Governor Mr Yahaya Bello is said to be coordinating the renting of protestors mainly from states with proximity to Abuja as he was said not to be part of the conspiracy. More than two thousand youths are said to be coming from Kogi alone Wednesday morning.
These tough measures followed the security report implicating some leading lights among the governors of the APC said to be working in cahoots with some PDP governors.
The security report according to Aso Rock sources indicated that certain governors of the ruling party who are convinced Mr President has been taken hostage by certain forces in his informal caucus have been mobilising their colleague to form a common front in ensuring whoever succeeds the President does not come from outside the rank of the present state governors.
The report is said to have alleged that a certain APC northern governor claimed to his colleagues that he commissioned a consortium of consultants who recommended that Mr President needed to be sufficiently embattled and weakened in his final tenure to prevent him from exercising any considerable influence in determining his successor.
The northern governor who is said to have traveled abroad at the moment with a former activist from his state now a senator, had equally revealed to his colleagues that a survey by the consultants had discovered that 93% of youths with secondary school education and above are disillusioned and bitter with the administration and the ruling party and could serve as easy recruits for a peaceful uprising that could disparage the Buhari regime much like the George Floyd Protests in the US which reverberated across world.
In the said survey it was allegedly discovered that just like in US where the minorities have much animus towards the police for their profiling and institutional racism Nigerian youths equally detest the special branches of the police which could be used as a rallying cry to mobilise them to action.
“That is how the End SARS crusade was conceived. Internet and IT experts where said to have been recruited abroad and asked to be on the vigil ready to engage in mass online mobilisation once the the protests is launched.
“Simultaneously videos of police atrocities from across Nigeria some of them as old as 10years began to flood the internet on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and every conceivable internet platform. This was to ignite the feeling of anger among several young people most of whom must have encountered crooked and rogue police men. This feeling of anger was believed to be sufficient to prepare the minds of the youths to support the uprising.” the source quoted the report as saying .
According to the source, also agents were recruited to mobilise Nigerians in diaspora in different countries to give an international flavour to the revolt.
To cover their traces the governors relying on the recommendation of the consultants discouraged the organisers from selecting identifiable leaders for the protests. Besides it was said that the absence of clear leaders could also serve as a good excuse to frame some ambitious top politicians outside their ranks as the sponsors of the protests.
However this aspect was said to have been unsuccessful following the fatal error of mobilising the protesters to cripple business at the Lekki Toll Gate believed to be a major business interest of their targeted fall guy.
Besides the attitude of many of the governors who either openly sympathised with the demonstrators or looked the other way was said to have alerted the intelligence agencies who felt any major player at any level of government ought to be worried that the uprising was a clear and present danger to our democracy.
It is learnt that diligent probing by the intelligence agencies was rewarded when one of the APC governors in the North Central betrayed the plan and said although he wasn’t deep into it, he believed that the ring leaders are four APC governors two from the north and two from the south.
He was said to have claimed that the alliance to prevent the president from falling pray to the antics of his informal power caucus had gained alot of traction with the governors who believe that any successor of Mr President not endorsed by them could start hounding them after their tenures like President Jonathan did to Ibori and some other ex governors when he came to power.
This alliance according to the report manifested in governors from both parties supporting Godwin Obaseki of Edo State to victory with Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi openly admitting that there was an unwritten code among governors to support their own even against their own party. Same reason PDP Governors abandoned their candidate in Ondo last week .
Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State was equally said to have raised eyebrows at the sponteinity of the protests and the effective organisation that it enjoyed and refused supporting the action in his state, suspecting that some persons were orchestrating it.
The administration is therefore believed to be resolved to crush the uprising with heavy hand beginning from Wednesday when they believe the protest would have been adequately discredited with the spate of orchestrates violence.