Lagos — The cowards of Aso Rock eventually played their last card on Tuesday, February 23, 2010. It was a desperate joker that was meant to be a masterstroke. The plan was executed with military precision. And it hit targets that were far and near. Some of the fat cats in Abuja were actually caught off-guard. But the offensive was a crude imitation of the Israeli commando action during the Entebbe Raid in Uganda many years ago. They had little time to achieve their mission, and every second was crucial. Of course, secrecy was paramount. But these bullies of Abuja were not as efficient as the Israelis.

In this golden era of technology, their cover was blown early enough, even before they took off. We got wind of the movement of President Umaru Yar'Adua's special forces from Saudi Arabia to Nigeria at exactly 10.53pm, through an impeccable source. The crispy message had exploded on my phone, as I prepared to retire to bed that night: "I have been made to understand Umaru is landing back in a few hours..." My response was spontaneous, "in what state are they bringing him?"I was so sure that the ubiquitous Nigerian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia had been spinning all kinds of lies by saying the President was now very fit.

Why would a President be hiding from his own people, if all was well indeed? I had a premonition that Nigerians were going to be horrified by the revelations that would be jumping out of the closets very soon. For some funny reasons, I felt the end game had come. It was good and bad news for Nigeria. It was good because it would now be more difficult to tell us the President is as fit as fiddle when no one has seen him in public in many months. It was bad because, the Acting President is going to be distracted from the smooth manner he was beginning to run the affairs of state. On our part as concerned Nigerians, we'll be forced to spend a few weeks of hard labour in order to exorcise those irritants obviously determined to fight with everything and anything to retain power.

As I mentioned in my column last week, the option of Turai and her gang holing up inside the State House, Abuja, would be a better strategy, for maintaining their hold on power, than the irrational decision of keeping the President of Africa's biggest nation on a foreign soil indefinitely. And, that if the President was on a sick bed in Abuja instead of Saudi Arabia, he would not have been easily removed by the National Assembly. I'm sure they eventually found that option attractive.

To worsen their predicament, there was the sucker punch Professor Condoleeza Rice gave President Yar'Adua last Sunday at the THISDAY Awards, where she said "the presidency was bigger than the President." Also the pressure on the Saudi government from every angle was becoming suffocating. The Saudis could no longer continue to denigrate the people and government of Nigeria just to pamper a few super brats.

The delegation of Ministers to Saudi Arabia was going to be the last straw. If they returned without seeing the President, and the President was not yet back on our soil, the executive council would have been presented with a fait accompli to pronounce the President unfit to rule on grounds of total incapacitation. It was becoming obvious too that the Acting President was getting the right and powerful endorsements from everyone and everywhere. The visit of President George Bush to Dr Jonathan was seen as a clincher.

Even the tension in the land was calming down with everyone moving on without a vanished President. If Turai and her self-conceited friends liked, they can make Saudi their permanent abode. With this reality staring them in the face, panic began to set in. The hawks did some quick arithmetic, and came to the conclusion that they had to play for broke before they were completely ostracised. The decision to return the President home, as a matter of urgency, was reached as a last option. The cookie was crumbling so fast, and they had to play the final game.

I knew there was no going to bed until some things were put in place. I alerted my dear comrades, who confirmed they had picked up the same signals. I soon received another message from my ever dependable source: "Possibly to Chair tomorrow's Executive Council meeting from what I hear to pre-empt a resolution of Council for Jonathan to become substantive President," which I never believed for a second. I knew the commando forces had deliberately dropped that hint to intimidate the Acting President, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. They knew the President was in no state to attend the cabinet meeting. The idea was to scuttle whatever plans were in place to install him as full President. They were convinced that the ghost of Yar'Adua lurking around Aso Rock was enough to scare the daylight out of our Ministers. Even while in far away Saudi Arabia, Yar'Adua's sickness was discussed in hushed tones. Now imagine him on ground.

Our immediate resolve was to move quickly to rescue Nigeria from this nonsense. We reached out to as many friends as possible, and the consensus was that we must resist this slavery. The name Turai was on the lips of everyone. What does this woman really want? Why would someone we didn't vote for become the one to hijack the lever of power? No one woman in Nigerian history had attempted what Hajia Turai was trying hard to achieve. One impudent woman had literally stolen our President. And she had not deemed it fit to dignify Nigerians with some explanations. Yet nowhere in our Constitution was the wife of the President accorded such a privilege.

It was really important to end this debacle soon because Nigeria has been haemorrhaging dangerously. If these guys hate their country that much, majority of Nigerians don't. We want to live in a peaceful country where "tongues and tribe don't differ" and we can stand up in brotherhood. We crave for a nation that works. Not a country where egocentric people ravage our land with impunity, and play ethnic cards to justify their crass selfishness. We were deeply angered by the insults that stared us in the face.

In Lagos, I was constantly in touch with Simon Kolawole who was working the phones and tapping on his rich sources. The THISDAY photographer in Abuja, Sunday Aghaeze, had been woken up from bed, and the brave guy was on the fiendish road in search of the shot of his life. He could have ended up being shot himself but he got the picture of the smugglers speeding into town under the cover of darkness. For me, Sunday was the hero of the night.

The Afenifere scribe, Yinka Odumakin would do well to set up a spy shop. The energetic guy was following some tips, including the flight plans of the aircrafts heading towards Nigeria. We took over the American air-waves with the amazing dexterity of our internet whizz-kid, Bankole Omisore, who was updating the multitude of anxious Nigerians on Facebook, Tweeter, and Blackberry networks. Our strategy was to mobilise Nigerians living abroad to take active interests in what goes on at home, especially the youths. Yinka Odumakin sent a message that we would have to keep a night vigil. Air traffic control was being monitored in Niger and Chad and across West Africa. There was no way that air ambulance was going to land without us knowing about it. The way the President was smuggled in the last time left much to be desired.

Then the message came from a friend that the plane was due to land. We received an alert the moment the plane touched down. We knew when it was parked unusually on the runway, and the waiting ambulance roared into life and was positioned close to the air-ambulance that ferried home our offshore President. We wondered why Turai was subjecting her husband to this ordeal. The President that we should have received with pomp and pageantry was now reduced to a common commodity.

We knew that soldiers had taken absolute control of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, and the routes leading to Aso Rock Presidential Villa. The question was who had the audacity to bring soldiers on the streets of Abuja in peace time. All fingers pointed at a few dare-devil Nigerians who must be exposed and punished for the assault on our nation, and the total disrespect of the Acting President. From every indication, the Nigerian Presidency had been reduced to a personal property of the First Family, which they had to protect with their last breath. All manner of lies had been concocted since our President disappeared from radar over three months ago. Governance had been miserably reduced to ruling by proxy by the kamikaze hawks. No one was spared. We heard of the President's aides reeling out instructions to everyone and anyone. No status was too big to be desecrated by these cowboys and their capo.

If we thought we had seen the worst of the strange things that afflict Nigeria from time to time, this was a vintage. A sick President was virtually kept away from anyone and everyone, including the Acting President Jonathan, a perfect gentleman. To be fair to the sick President, it is now obvious that the man was no longer in the state to know what was happening around him. He had, literarily, been mummified to be kept away permanently in a vault or mausoleum, while his spirit was being invoked to commit all kinds of atrocities.

Nigeria was agog with the sordid tales of the return. Let me not repeat them here. But I'm interested in who sent my brother, Olusegun Adeniyi on the mission to address the Acting President as Vice President. That was the worst blunder that unified Nigerians against Turai and her kitchen cabinet. It is one blunder that forced them to beat a retreat the following day. I also read that the team that has humiliated Dr Jonathan to no end are now pledging their loyalty to him. They said they will all work under him.

The question is how soon would they tell their powerful Madam that the game is up and offer apologies to Nigerians for taking us all for fools? When would they tell us what exactly is wrong with our President? And are they brave enough to tell Madam, if indeed the President is as ill as being suggested, that it is time to go home?The game is over and they should allow Nigeria to recover from the pestilence that descended on our nation.