The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Omo-Agege

  • Senate vs Senator Omo-Agege: The deepening of impunity

    The recent suspension of Senator Ovie Omo-Agege reignites the debate as to whether the upper house of the National Assembly has the power to oust a duly elected lawmaker from his seat. In this report, Jide Babalola, examines whether the Senate in descending into a reign of impunity.

    FOR the Buhari administration, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and even the entire nation, the Senate presents countless sad epochal ironies.

    Top of the list is the ruling party promising change and the APC-dominated Senate confronting ‘change’.

    It started with a confounding disregard of party leaders on whose back many had an easy ride into the Red Chambers of the National Assembly. In subsequent moves, the Senate resorted to both sly and obvious steps to dare the party’s founding fathers, show contempt for their much-touted progressive principles and even, the Presidency with which an APC-dominated Senate was supposed to run a well-calibrated agenda for governance.

    In spite of rationalizations being advanced from various sources, citizens find it extremely perplexing that for one reason after the other, the May 29 third anniversary of this administration is approaching without much wisdom for resolving the challenge  of undue delay in the  passage of the annual national budget. The Senate has indeed made itself ‘busy’ on diverse issues.

    The story of how the APC-dominated Senate leadership launched straight away  into  horse-trading with  the Peoples Democratic Party, which it uses to maintain a hold today is too well known. Nonetheless, the known and unpublicized continuous accretion of mischief by the Senate’s leadership appears to be beyond most citizens’ comprehension.

    Senate President Bukola Saraki  and his deputy,Ike Ekweremadu, have been having puzzling and rather unbecoming encounters in the courts. In April last year, a civil society organisation – Citizens United for Peace and Stability (CUPS) – staged a peaceful rally to demand the immediate resignation of the Senate President over the myriad of corruption cases preferred against him.

    Those who sacrifice all and fought for the restoration of democracy in Nigeria must be extremely appalled that the nation’s highest legislative body is yet to grasp all the fine ethos of representative governance.

    Although it tends to accuse the executive arm of lawlessness, the Senate under Saraki appears to be much more lawless and irresponsible. Critics are quick to remember its  fiat order that  the  pro-Buhari group in the Senate  should disband following the suspension of Senator Omo-Agege from the chambers.

    The pro-Buhari group comprises the likes of Alhaji Abdullahi Adamu and Agege.

    The existence of such intra-parliamentary groupings is not strange to democracy.In deed they  make for even more robust debates and healthy democracy.

    Several of such groups,notably the Congressional Black Caucus, have thrived in the US Congress for decades and are even getting stronger, organizing around manifestos, development agenda, candidates and other sundry priorities.

    It is intriguing how anyone  who rode into power with the backing of  such groupings will turn round to deem any such group illegal.

    The view is canvassed in some quarters that Buhari was the ultimate target of the Senate suspension of Omo-Agege.

    For instance, Senator  Saraki said the ‘suspension’ was a ‘sanction’ against Senator Omo-Agege for associating with about 60 other serving senators as a frontline member and the Secretary of the Parliamentary Support Group (PSG) for President Muhammadu Buhari. Omo-Agege was also accused of holding and expressing a dissenting opinion on a contentious amendment to Section 25 of the Electoral Act, 2010 regarding election sequence to the extent that, “there is a perception out there that the amendment is targeted at Mr. President (Buhari)” – a perception repeatedly confirmed by many authoritative sources, as the Senate President put it.

    Thirdly, the embattled Senator was found guilty of seeking proper legal interpretation of certain areas of the 1999 Constitution in the court of law!

    Unfortunately, none of what the Warri North Senator is being accused of, constitutes any civil or criminal offence in Nigeria and it clear by reasoning that a Senator cannot be ‘sanctioned’ by suspension/removal from his seat by any authority because he committed  any of these ‘sins’. Indeed, they are all within the scope of fundamental rights expressly guaranteed by the Constitution. Sections 39 (1), 40 of the 1999 Constitution obviously affirm this.

    The removal or suspension of a duly elected Senator cannot be subjected to anyone’s whims and caprices. Sections 68 and 69 of the 1999 Constitution exhaustively state how a lawmaker may vacate his seat. This can only be done by death, resignation or recall of the Senator by registered voters or electors in his electoral constituency; or in case of defection from the party platform on which he was elected (without a division in that party).

    In addition, a court or tribunal of competent jurisdiction may remove a legislator.

    Is it legally possible or impossible to suspend a Senator? The answer is yes but it has to be in clear accordance with constitutional provisions.  Under Section 21 of the Legislative Houses (Powers and Privileges) Act, 2018, a member of a Legislative House may be suspended but such a suspension is limited to 48 hours.

    Even by Order 67(4) of the Senates Standing Orders, 2015, a Senator cannot be suspended for more than 14 days.

    However, these provisions of the Act/Standing Orders are inconsistent with the Constitution and therefore invalid.

    Even with an assumption that they are valid; the Senate still lacks the power to suspend a Senator for more than 14 days.

    The 8th Senate of which Senator Saraki is President ought to be on familiar grounds on this matter. The fact that the Senate has no power to suspend a member at all is well settled in the case of Ali Ndume v Senate. It was also reflected in a case lost by the Bauchi State House of Assembly that had suspended Hon. Danna. There is  also the Usman v. Kaduna State House of Assembly case as well as that of Hon. Melaye v. House of Representatives.

    By the legal principle of judgment, the decisions in these cases are binding on the Senate and it may be deemed to be acting in breach of the law, to the point of gross impunity.

    A related matter was Senator Omo-Agege’s attendance of the Senate sitting of Wednesday, April 18, 2018 to represent his constituents. With the suspension being unlawful, it can be logically argued that he was within his constitutional right and lawful boundary to be present in the Senate chamber for the conduct of his legal and democratically-assigned senatorial duties.

    What makes the unfolding scenario in the Senate even more baffling is the presence of lawyers, including at least one or two Senior Advocates of Nigeria among them. If Omo-Agege’s membership of a pro-Buhari group in the Senate is wrong, what of Senator Saraki who became Senate President through the machinations of a group.

    However, the recalcitrance in the Senate is becoming even more pronounced. When Senator Ali Ndume won his case, the court ordered that payment of his arrears must be made in full but has Ndume been paid as directed by the court?

    All these give rise to very troubling questions. Is Saraki running the Senate as a despot, tyrant or a democrat, considering the errant abuse of the laws of the land? Is there a hidden agenda to outflank President Buhari, weaken the government and break out of the ruling party towards strengthening another platform as the 2019 elections draw nearer?

    Only the Senate President and a few of his trusted ones have answers to some of the questions that agitate the minds of ordinary citizens.

    As the Latino-American writer, Isabel Allende wrote: “What I fear most is power with impunity. I fear abuse of power, and the power to abuse.”

    Abuse of power and impunity makes Nigerian citizens feel helpless as elected officials turn their positions into inglorious fiefdoms. It is even more disappointing and shocking that all these are unfolding under the era of change where citizens had expected a united and common front of progressive forces against the forces of retrogression that have continued to hold back genuine change and development. Certainly, not all those who currently benefit from the mass ‘blind’ support for APC will benefit from riding on the back of someone else during the 2019 elections.

  • Omo-Agege as victim of high-handedness

    Delinquency, thuggery and criminality as well as self-help are metaphors for the 8th Senate. With last week’s invasion of the Senate chambers and carting away of the mace by those described as thugs and criminals allegedly sponsored by embattled Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, it was the case of those who sowed the wind reaping the whirl-wind. But this has not stopped the nation from being assailed with precipitate recriminations, denunciations and loud wailings especially by masters of political intrigues and veterans of self-help.

    Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu who finally found his voice after the hoodlums had accomplished their mission saw the assault as “an institutional infraction” while his soul mate, Bukola Saraki, the Senate President says “What happened was a disgrace.  To Aliyu Sabi-Abdullahi, chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, “The action is an act of treason.” Organised Labour on its part says the invasion was a “violation of the sanctity of the Senate”. For Femi Gbajabiamila, it was “an indication the lawmakers are a sitting duck”. And while the opposition PDP saw it as “a direct assault on the legislature”, the ruling APC saw “the invasion as an attack on democracy.” Unfortunately, the fire, fury and the wailings have in the main focused on symptoms instead of the fundamental problem of a culture of self-help, impunity and delinquency which define the 8th Senate.

    Again, it is worth repeating how waywardness of the current leadership of the Senate got us to this sorry pass.  In 2015, APC as a party duly met and conducted a straw poll and clear candidates emerged. Dissatisfied, Saraki after trading off the position of deputy senate president to the opposition outwitted his fellow 51 APC senators holding a meeting with the president in another venue and sneaked into the chambers to be pronounced senate president by acclamation after a motion by Senator Dino Melaye supported by predominantly PDP opposition senators. Prof. Itse Sagay had then described the act of treachery which propelled Saraki to power as “an act of illegality and criminality, because there is no way a Senate can be formally inaugurated without all the members present –provided they want to be present”. For him, Saraki’s perfidy was nothing but an attempted coup”.

    To consolidate the position, Senate Standing Rules were allegedly forged, a claim confirmed by the police interim report. Based on the report, Saraki’s aggrieved and outwitted colleagues dragged him and his deputy, Ekweremadu, to court. The Senate leadership quickly resorted to self-help by passing a resolution to the effect that there was no forgery. Since, courts cannot question how the Senate runs its internal affairs, the protesting senators lost out.

    Saraki, Melaye and their group celebrated their victory at the Senate executive session of July 12, 2016. It was there Senator Dino Melaye gave an order that “because already there is a resolution of the Senate that the rules of the Senate were not forged, all those who have gone to court should go and withdraw their names from court and that if at the end of the day those who refused to withdraw their names from court, we should penalise them by suspending them”.

    And if further evidence that the Senate resorted to self-help to pervert justice is needed,  the statement issued by Lagos State senators to denounce Dino Melaye’s harassment and intimidation of Senator Remi Tinubu provided just that. According to the statement, “As distinguished members of the Red Chamber, we are strongly in favour of resolving any conflict that has arisen in the course of our representation and national duty through dialogue and due process and we will not be part of any solution obtained through any form of coercion, threat, intimidation and ungentlemanly conduct of the distinguished office of a senator.”

    Unfortunately, little has changed in the way the senate is run three years down the line.

    It can also now be argued that Saraki probably deployed self-help tactics to mollify some of the protesting APC senators. The salaries of senators have been shrouded in secrecy until a few weeks back, when ‘saint’ Senator Shehu Sani told the nation that in addition to senators’ N700, 000 official monthly salary, senators also collect N13.5m monthly which they are free to spend as they like as long as they are retired with receipts. This he said was in addition to the N200m constituency project budget senators preside over. I cannot think of a more plausible explanation as to why APC senators who once pretended to be on the side of the people would choose to drown with the Senate leadership even as they got embroiled in more scandals.

    For instance, on March 18, 2017, Sahara Reporters had with a howling headline reported “Senate on Vengeance after Nigerian Customs Seized Senator Saraki’s Bulletproof Range Rover over Fake Documents”. The story was that the customs “ had on January 11, 2017, intercepted and impounded a Range Rover SUV which carried documents that claimed its chassis number was “SALGV3TF3EA190243”, valued  at  N298 million, with an alleged fake documents presented by the driver showing payment of N8m as against expected customs duty of N74 million. The Senate quickly resorted to self-help. The Senate, after adopting a motion raised by Senator Dino Melaye against Hameed Ali, the Comptroller General of Customs, was ordered to appear in the upper house. Dino Melaye insisted he must appear wearing Customs-General uniform despite Femi Falana’s argument that “Neither the constitution not the Rules of Procedure of the Senate has conferred on it the power to compel the CGC to wear customs uniform when he is not a serving customs officer.” The Senate at the end became a judge in its own case with its internal probe exonerating the Senate President while putting the blame squarely on the importer of the car.

    Finally, we can mention a few other instances when the Senate resorted to self-help to pervert the course of justice. Following newspapers’ investigations that showed some serving senators including the Senate President who were once governors were earning double salaries, the Senate through an internal probe came out to inform the public that the governor-turned senators were receiving pensions and not salaries.

    When Minister Raji Fashola in 2017 decried lawmakers’ diversion of budgetary allocations from critical projects designed to benefit the people to their controversial constituency projects, he was summoned and browbeaten while the then Acting President Osinbajo who was critical of the lawmakers action was threatened with impeachment.

    In the Sahara Reporters claim that Senator Melaye was dressing himself in borrowed robes by claiming to be alumni of some prestigious institutions around the world, instead of allowing an independent body to examine the online newspaper claim, they once again resorted to self-help by setting up an internal probe which confirmed that Dino Melaye indeed earned a third class degree certificate in Geography from ABU, Zaria.

    Omo-Agege has not denied he belongs to the Buhari Support Group. It was perhaps for this reason he alleged that because “only 36 of 360 members of the House of Representatives adopted the report on the amendment to the Electoral Act while the Senate did not form a quorum the day it passed the bill”, the whole exercise was aimed at undermining Buhari’s chances in 2019.

    Even after he had been forced to apologise for his comments, Dino Melaye the Senate ‘enforcer’ still went ahead to move a motion for his suspension for 181 days. And Saraki,  claiming to be concerned about the preservation of the integrity of the Senate  as an institution, approved Melaye’s motion but reduced the suspension to 90 legislative days’ subject to his withdrawing his case against the Senate in court.

    Even the rebellious Jews in response to Jesus Christ’s “let him without sin throw the first stone” John (8:7) simply melted away. Senator Saraki and Senator Dino Melaye seem to think Nigerians cannot see through their perfidy.

  • Protesters: recall Omo-Agege from suspension

    Protesters, said to be constituents of suspended Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, stormed the National Assembly yesterday to ask for his reinstatement.

    The protesters decried the continued suspension of the Delta Central senator.

    The Senate suspended Omo-Agege on April 12 for 90 legislative days for his remarks against sequence of elections.

    The embattled senator forced himself into the Senate chamber on April 18 at a time thugs invaded and stole the mace.

    The protester, under the aegis of “Delta Central Collective,” demanded the reinstatement of Omo-Agege. They threatened that Omo-Agege’s continued suspension was an invitation to anarchy.

    A speech signed by its Chairman, Clever Akpovona Egbeji, described Omo-Agege’s suspension as illegal.

    The letter said: “Based on previous rulings of the courts, neither the Senate nor the House of Representatives has the right or power to suspend any of its members.

    “The Senate has no constitutional powers to suspend any of its members as established by judgments to that effect in the case of Senator Ali Ndume vs the Senate in 2017; Bauchi State House of Assembly vs Danna; and House of Representatives vs (now Senator) Dino Melaye, and others in 2009/2010.”

    They vowed to continue the protest “as long as the Senate refuses to rescind its illegal suspension slammed on Omo-Agege”.

  • Protesters demand Omo-Agege’s recall

    Protesters from Senator Ovie Omo-Agege’s constituency stormed the National Assembly on Wednesday to demand for his reinstatement.

    The protesters decried the continued suspension of the Delta Central Senator by the Senate.

    The Senate suspended Omo-Agege on April 12 for 90 legislative days over remarks on elections’ sequence.

    The protesters, who came under the aegis of “Delta Central Collective,” demanded the immediate recall of Omo-Agege.

    They threatened that the senator’s continued suspension was an invitation to anarchy.

    A written speech by the group and signed by its Chairman, Chief Clever Akpovona Egbeji, described Omo – Agege’s suspension as illegal.

    The letter which they claimed was sent to the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, noted that “based on previous rulings of the courts, neither the Senate nor the House of Representatives has the power to suspend any of its members.”

    “The Senate has no constitutional powers to suspend any of its members as established by judgements in the case of Senator Ali Ndume vs the Senate in 2017, Bauchi State House of Assembly vs Hon Danna, and House of Representatives vs Hon (now Senator)  Dino Melaye and others in 2009/2010,” the protesters said.

     

     

  • Between Sani and Omo-Agege

    Consider the differing fates of Shehu Sani (Kaduna Central) and Ovie Omo-Agege (Delta Central); and you’d probably put your finger on the moral sewers in which this eighth Senate proudly wallows.

    Sani ratted on his colleagues — a very good ratting, if you ask — of a N13.5 million monthly “running costs”, in a season of economic angst and pan-Nigeria hunger.

    That alone symbolizes unconscionable greed; and perhaps the greatest concentration of senatorial parasites, on a vanishing national purse.

    Indeed more ruinous, for the reckless assembly’s health: it is suicidal hubris for the parasite to care less about its host.  If its host drops dead, is it not kaput too?

    The great Awo resonates, from the world beyond, on his iron clad classification of the politicians of his day: the “Oselu” (Yoruba for politician) versus the “Ojelu” (Yoruba for parasite).  No prize for guessing where the Senate, under Bukola Saraki, falls!

    In spite of his ratting however, Shehu Sani sits pretty and dainty.  No one could touch him.  The assembly just licks its wound in seething but impotent rage.

    Not so, with Ovie Omo-Agege.

    Omo-Agege never ratted on anyone.  And even if he did, it was never on nation-threatening greed, on which this Senate and the House of Representatives stand fairly accused.

    He only blew the whistle on what everyone already knew: that this Senate had developed a sickening pleasure, of turning public estate, into private treasure.

    The exact “satanic verse” that sent the senatorial cabal hopping mad?

    “The President has not done anything to warrant the deliberate provocations being directed at him by this Senate.  It is callous and unacceptable to me,” he told the media, of the Senate attempts to reorder the sequence of elections. “We cannot make a law just to fight one man. I will not be part of it, 59 Senators have said that we won’t be part of that act of vindictiveness, put it into vote, we will defeat it…”

    Indeed, illicit advantage never had higher parliamentary representation in Nigerian history!  A Senate never looked more like a coven of powers and principalities!

    But after all that, the dam broke!  The guilty may well be afraid.  But when, in Chinua Achebe-speak, a coward sights a person he can maul, he becomes hungry for a fight.

    A Senate that cowered before Shehu the Impregnable — his hard moral punch so stunning and so devastating — rashly rushed for the scalp of Ovie the Vulnerable, alleging an abuse of parliamentary privilege.

    Dino Melaye put Omo-Agege in the dock.  Bukola Saraki handed down the final judgment, albeit with perverse mercy — the “convict” would endure 90 days suspension, half of the original “ sentence” of 180 days!

    In-between, members of a tiny clique testified why open truth and notorious facts are dire threats to them on their senatorial street!  It’s the making of a Senate as a democratic farce!

    When the dust cleared, even a greater farce had seized the horizon.  Some alleged louts stole into the Senate-at-plenary, grabbed the mace and vanished — rippling security be damned!  Whodunnit?

    “You, Omo-Agege!” a furious Senate barked.

    “Not me!” Omo-Agege counter-hissed.

    As patriotism is often the last bastion of the scoundrel, the Senate dived into its umpteenth frenzy of empty cant — Saraki in America and Ike Ekweremadu in Abuja — mouthing beatification everyone knows is the exact opposite of what this Senate is.  Reminds you — doesn’t it — of Wole Soyinka’s Beatification of the Area Boy?

    Still, even as the farcical drama plays out and the polity vibrates with excitement, it is clear to everyone, not the least the hypocritical Senate, that its crude impunity is the architect of its crude invasion of April 18.

    Its self-imposed nemesis is its so-called “suspensions”, which vault group rights over and above the constitution-enshrined right to constituency representation.  As The Nation argued in its editorial of Sunday April 22, how can the 1999 Constitution say yes, but its mere creations say no?

    In this eighth Senate, it would even appear worse: that “group right” would appear no more than the oppressive whims and caprices of a clique, carving the assembly out in its reactionary image.

    Of course, a telling riposte to this impunity was the Omo-Agege stunt — no, not the criminality of alleged louts making away with the mace — but of defying the so-called suspension and attending plenary, Senate integrity be damned!

    A case of jungle resolutions earning civil defiance, all in the hallowed chambers of the Senate, now turned completely hollow?  It never gets more bathetic — and pathetic.

    Still, this fumbling Senate ought to have armed itself with little history, of how parliamentary rascality had, in the past, earned Nigeria sundry grief.

    On 25 May 1962 — 56 years ago by May — some rascals in the Western Region House of Assembly orchestrated the chaos that led to the declaration of emergency in the Western Region.  That would push Nigeria to destructive military rule.

    But that was the age of naivety when, for the reckless rascality of a few lawmakers, conceited soldiers presumed they could sack the republic.

    As E.M. Forster quipped in A Passage to India — and Nigeria has been eminent proof — soldiers could indeed put one thing straight.  But they’ll set tens of others awry.

    Luckily, that age of innocence is gone.  Now, come Election Day, every senator must pay for his own insouciance — or be rewarded for his own diligence.  It’s all about the grim majesty of democracy.

    For the decent souls in the Senate, this isn’t the best of seasons.  Aren’t they even stunned at the gargoyle their chamber has turned?

    The Senate president, for personal hustle, sold his party cheap.  The deputy, happy, merry and cheerful, received the “stolen good” — for where else, in a sane democracy, does a man, for personal gain, pawn his party’s birthright to the opposition?

    It’s epochal perfidy — the making of the eighth Senate as a moral howler.

    With such a dangling moral albatross, it is doomed with fatal distractions.  That is why it would tarry to pass the budget — and it’s near-end April — but hurry to impose farcical suspensions.

    That is why it would cannibalize the 2017 budget, and cream off crucial votes for the Lagos-Ibadan expressway — among other key arteries nationwide — for useless porks that pass for boreholes, Marwa tricycles and allied nonsense, as “constituency projects”.  Yet, that was an economy wrestling with recession!

    In ancient Athens, the Areopagus — supreme legislative and judicial council — teemed with seasoned minds.

    In its Sparta equivalent, the famed elders of the state that existed for Spartans passed laws that ensured the coming generations also lived — and died — for Sparta.

    In ancient Rome, the Senate was the bastion of critical thinking and provocative debates.  So, is it in present day United States.

    Why does this eighth Senate glory in nothing but frivolities, sundry humbug and illicit self-help?

    Nigeria needs servant-senators that would serve the people, not errant hustlers that spur them like a mule.  It’s time for a complete clear-out in 2019.

  • Omo-Agege: Posers for Senate

    Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Lagos (UNILAG), Akoka, Mr Wahab Shittu, in this article, raises posers on the suspension of Senator Ovie Omo-Agege and the demonstration that trailed the event

    My intervention on the seemingly disgraceful and shameful incidence on the floor of the Senate last week is to say that our democracy is gravely endangered. Unfortunately, in this situation, by the conspiracy of the ruling elite whose actions may precipitate crisis largely because they are unable to play by the rules and for refusal to allow our democracy to be guided by the rule of law.

    I raise the following questions:

    Who sponsored the violent demonstrations? How did the demonstrators gain entrance to the hallowed chambers without security challenges? What is the role of the law enforcement agencies in the saga? Who are the persons culpable? What are the immediate factors that led to this violent demonstrations? Are we sure that the players are respecting the rules? Are we certain that the rule of law is being protected in the events leading to the suspension of Senator Ovie Omo-Agege? Is the suspension of Senator Omo-Agege consistent with constitutional provisions and judicial pronouncements? Is the senate entitled to suspend Senator Omo-Agege without reference to his constituent? Where does the suspension of Omo-Agege leave his constituent in terms of representation? Who decides the suspension of Senator Omo-Agege and what is the criteria for his suspension? To what extent can we attribute the present events on the floor of the Senate to hunger, anger and poverty in the land? Are Nigerians happy with the Senators and their performance? Are the Senators not playing into the hands of enemies of democracy by their actions and activities beyond this demonstration? How do we deal with the present situation to avoid future occurrence? What steps are we taking to ensure that our democracy is not endangered? What is the role of the rule of law in all of these?

    These and many other questions can only be effectively and efficiently answered by the practice of democracy through the rule of law.

    Going forward, our democracy must not only be anchored on the rule of law and respect for the common good, our political elite must also be prepared to reflect their activities as democrats. We need a huge investment in political education and political culture, essentially anchored on maturity by the operators.

     

  • Omo-Agege: Death of outrage

    A week after the invasion of the hallowed chambers of the upper legislative house, it is not exactly surprising that a good number of supposedly outraged Nigerians have, in the fouled-up atmosphere of partisan bickering, done little else than fish for the moral equivalence to justify the odious act.

    To be sure, many have condemned the invasion in one breath. Overall however, there is a sense in which in the eyes of many, the brazen outlawry could be tolerated, if not entirely vitiated by the so-called weak moral or ethical foundations of the current Senate leadership, its supposedly tyrannical hold on the institution and alleged unwillingness to tolerate dissent. And so they argue that the suspension of Senator Ovie Omo-Agege was merely the tipping point!

    It is a measure of how far things have sunk that the citizens cannot find a common voice to condemn the brazen despoliation of the sacred institution of parliament only because the current temporary occupants of its precincts belong to the club we love to hate. It has been a tragic week – if you ask me.

    Away from the tepid rationalisations – the pertinent question and which the entire country must find urgent answer remains – Is the Senate right to have suspended the lawmaker from Delta Central? To the extent that the brouhaha was kindled by the spark of the suspension of the senator, that would appear as the heart of the matter hence the need for a dispassionate consideration of the issues.

    I certainly do not agree that the issue is as cut and dried as often presented. Clearly, just as it is inconceivable to have a complex organisation without a body of rules and conventions guiding its day to day activities, I do not think there can be questions as to whether or not the parliament as an institution can set out the rules to guide its members. It would seem given that such rules would include sanctions for infractions to parliamentary conduct. While arguments about what could be deemed as misconduct by the institution itself and the general public would be understandable, the rules are not only fundamental but inviolate.

    Now to the arguments. The first– an emotive one, insists that the senate lacks the power to deny the constituents of representation in parliament.  The other– an interesting one – which has since become something of an orthodoxy particularly in the aftermath of  last Monday’s event insists that the parliament lacks the power to suspend any of its members. Those of this persuasion cite the November 2017 ruling of Federal High Court in Abuja which nullified the 90 days suspension handed to Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume by the Senate. In a judgment delivered by Justice Babatunde Quadri, the Senate and its President, Bukola Saraki, were ordered to pay the embattled lawmaker representing Borno South Senatorial District, all his outstanding salaries and allowances.

    The matter, if I may recall, has since gone on appeal – which means that it is far from closed. For now, the best we can do is to await the decision of the appellate court if not the apex court for final resolution.

    However, for a guide – I find the example of the United States, a country with older tradition and practice and where our presidential constitution was borrowed helpful if to illuminate the debate and hopefully strip arguments of their pretensions to sanctimoniousness.

    Specifically, Article I, Section 5, of the United States Constitution provides that “Each House [of Congress] may determine the Rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behaviour, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member.”

    We know what that means. It means stripping the electors of their representation in parliament – an extreme measure – by means of mere internal parliamentary rules!

    For milder forms of punishment, censures and reprimands are imposed by a simple majority of the full House.

    Permit me to quote rather extensively from the website – History, Arts and Archives of the United States House of Representatives http://history.house.gov/Institution/Origins-development/Discipline/:  “In devising this framework, the Constitutional Convention drew upon British legislative tradition as well as nearly 175 years of precedent in the colonial assemblies in North America. Other than the two-thirds requirement, however, the framers left it up to the House and Senate to determine their own rules and the type of behaviour that might warrant expulsion from their respective chambers.

    It further states: “Despite this broad grant of authority, the framers set the two-thirds threshold because such an action would necessarily remove someone who had been elected by the popular vote of his or her constituents. And though the House has wide discretion to act in such cases, it has demonstrated keen deference to the peoples’ choice of their Representatives. One measure of that restraint is that the House has never expelled any Member for conduct that took place before his or her House service. Nor has the House removed Members for action in a prior Congress when the electorate insisted on re-electing them to the House despite a record of improper conduct”.

    The debate is no doubt, legitimate; not so however is the pretensions of those – like Ovie Omo-Agege, who think little of the rules of proper parliamentary behaviour. It therefore follows that those who go into parliament must accept that rules exist to guide their conduct –that certain behaviours are no no!

    My final point. It’s certainly not time yet to judge the Eighth Senate under Bukola Saraki. Not by the events of the suspension of Omo-Agege and its aftermath or by the manoeuvres that swept it into the office. Surely, there will be ample time to evaluate the performance of arguably the most expensive parliament in the universe. The same goes for the APC government that swept into office wielding their brooms of change. For now, it suffices to say that what is bad is bad. And if I may borrow the words of the most Distinguished Senator Shehu Sani, no amount of deodorizing of last Monday’s outlawry would make it smell like rose.

  • Why Senate cannot suspend its members – Falana

    Lagos lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), on Monday explained why the Senate cannot suspend its members.

    He described such action as “a mockery of democracy.”

    The Senate had last week suspended one of its members, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, over a statement he made on the amended time table for 2019 election.

    The lawyer, in a statement issued in Lagos and titled: “Illegal suspension of legislators in Nigeria,” drew the attention of the leadership of the National Assembly to the habit of suspending members who expressed dissenting opinions on parliamentary issues.

    He cited the case of the Speaker of the Bauchi House of Assembly vs Honourable Rifkatu Danna (2017) 49 WRN 52 and explained why it is illegal for leaders of a legislative house to suspend any of its members.

    He said the Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment of the Bauchi State High Court which had earlier set aside the indefinite suspension of Rifkatu Danna as member of the Bauchi State House of Assembly.

    He argued that the suspension of a legislator amount to a denial of representation by his or her constituency and a violation of the constitution.

    “The fact that the respondent was re-elected for another four year term by the people of Bogoro Constituency in Bauchi State to represent them in the House of Assembly was to ensure that she had the right to be in the House of Assembly for another four year term to serve the constituency without undue interference.”

    He said it was also to ensure that the constituency is represented in the Bauchi State House of Assembly for the four year lifespan of the Assembly.

    “That is why section 117(1) of the Constitution provides as follows: ‘Subject to the provisions of this constitution, every State Constituency established in accordance with the provisions of this part of this chapter shall return one member who shall be directly elected to a House of Assembly in such manner as may be prescribed by an Act of the National Assembly,” he added.

     

  • Senate invasion and Omo-Agege’s audacity

    LAST Wednesday’s invasion of the Senate chambers by thugs suspected to be acting a script widely regarded as coterminous with the frustrations of the suspended Senator Ovie Omo-Agege (Delta Central) may indicate far more trouble for the 8th Senate than Nigerians and senators care to admit. But there was no question just how dangerous the invasion is for the country, the health of its democracy, and the stability of the Fourth Republic. Newspaper and television reports showed how the invasion by thugs coincided with the forceful return to the Senate chambers of the suspended senator. There are reports indicating that the invasion was orchestrated, and that security agencies connived at it. Senator Omo-Agege denies the allegations.

    There is, however, no doubt that the security agencies failed in their duty of protecting the senate chambers and the lawmakers. The attackers not only had easy access to the chambers, they also had easy exit. Indeed, both their entry and exit appeared facilitated. Worse, the attackers and Sen Omo-Agege have been unwholesomely linked to the Buhari presidency, implying that the senator was punished for supporting the president against the order of elections Electoral Act amendment, and that in response the servile security agencies looked the other way as the highest lawmaking body in the country came under attack. What if it had degenerated into killings, on top of the killings in other parts of the country?

    The government has promised investigations. They should do more than that. By arresting and briskly releasing the senator at the centre of the brouhaha, the security agencies did not demonstrate impartiality and professionalism. It is critical that the government must demonstrate that both its judgement and its relationship with the lawmaking body, even if legislators are hostile, will be guided by the highest democratic principles and values. The Buhari presidency has not always given the country the assurance that it can operate flawlessly and even-handedly in a hostile legislative and partisan environment. It will, therefore, be interesting watching how the invasion is finally resolved, whether the government will act with firmness and dispassion or whether it will pull its punches.

    There are also indications that all is not well with the leadership and management of the Senate itself, a crisis supposedly dating back to the election of principal officers in 2015 and the leadership style and orientation of the Senate leadership. Happily the next elections are around the corner, and hopefully the preoccupation with election battles will both assuage hard feelings and deflect the bitterness that has subsisted in the chambers. But importantly, Senate leaders, particularly the increasingly melancholic Senate President, Bukola Saraki, must find ways of mollifying the rage of opponents and caucuses whose ideas and principles he may find combative and hostile. It will be a poor Senate indeed whose members all agree with him.

    Sen Saraki must recognise differences, accommodate them, and as a leader channel them creatively with aplomb for the common democratic good of the society. On account of the invasion and the inchoate plot to unseat him, he may now be tempted to fight his ‘enemies’ to the finish. He should resist that temptation. Not only will that approach exacerbate the schisms in the Senate, it will induce paranoia in the leaders and combatants. He will gain nothing by a destabilised Senate, notwithstanding the suspicion that an increasingly intolerant and cabalistic presidency has of recent seemed more minded to throwing the cat among the pigeons in order to sow divisions in the National Assembly and rule them, especially in an election year.

    Sen Omo-Agege cannot hope to completely distance himself from the uproar that shook the Senate last Wednesday. He was nearly lachrymose before his suspension when he sought to assuage his colleagues’ unhappiness with him in the heat of the Electoral Act amendment controversy. Before his suspension and during the invasion of the Senate, the senator cut the pitiable figure of a legislator who is neither deep nor calm under pressure. He is a sorry specimen of a lawmaker. The presidency too has not been run fluidly with the best of patriotic intentions and savvy. It is important that in the next polls voters must scrutinise with far more sense and rigour those they want to elect to make laws for them or rule them from the State House. The quality of the present occupants of state legislative chambers and State Houses all over the country fall far short of the standard needed to nurture democracy, engender quality debates, and grow and modernise the economy.

    Nigeria’s security and law enforcement agencies, as the reprisal killings orchestrated in Benue State allegedly by aggrieved soldiers show, have become dangerously partial and unprofessional. If a change of attitude is not forced upon them, they will imperil the country. Wednesday’s invasion must not be swept under the carpet, regardless of how the combatants were and are still arrayed, for the world will be watching to see whether those who rule Nigeria have the sense to let justice be served in the strictest sense or not.

  • Mace theft: Senators plot Omo-Agege’s total shut-out

    There were indications yesterday that the Senate would not allow Senator Ovie Omo-Agege to return to the chamber any time soon, following Wednesday’s invasion by thugs who also snatched the mace.

    Although Omo-Agege has denied any relationship with the perpetrators of the act, many of his colleagues appear not to be convinced by the senator’s defence.

    Consequently, they are pushing for his suspension for the rest of the legislative days of the 8th Senate.

    The fate of the former Chairman of Northern Senators Forum, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, is also shaky as he was said to have been put on the spot at an executive (close) session on Thursday where senators also identified five reasons why thugs invaded the hallowed chamber.

    Although Adamu was said to have fought back and stoutly defended himself against the accusations levelled against him, the senators were unanimous in their decision to get to the roots of the invasion and enhance the security situation in the National Assembly.

    The senators may also demand Omo-Agege’s prosecution after its internal investigation and the outcome of the findings of the Nigeria Police and the Department of State Security Service.

    A principal officer of the Senate said: “The coincidence between Omo-Agege’s entry into the chamber and the invasion by the thugs was more than met the eye.

    “Most of us are of the opinion that our colleague desecrated the Upper Chamber of the National Assembly.

    “We have resolved that we will not allow him to resume sitting in the chamber under any excuse.

    “Once a Senator is suspended rightly or wrongly, he or she has no business in the chamber.

    “The coming of Omo-Agege on Wednesday was an affront.

    “His suspension might be unfair, but he should not have fought his way into the chamber.”

    Another Senator said: “Some of us have demanded for outright suspension of Omo-Agege for the rest of the legislative days in the 8th Senate.

    “Actually, Omo-Agege was to be suspended for six months but the head of one of the security agencies prevailed on the leadership of the Senate to reduce it to 90 days.

    “Now, with the desecration of the chamber by thugs, we believe he has no business in the 8th Senate anymore.”

    At a stormy session on Thursday, the Senators were able to identify five accumulated factors which accounted for the invasion of the Senate chamber.

    The reasons are as follows:

    • Continuous fallout of June 9, 2015 election of principal officers
    • Suppression of dissenting voices in the Senate
    • Rating of some Senators higher or lesser than others by the Senate leadership
    • Existence of caucuses and unfair ban on Parliamentary Support Group which is pro-President Muhammadu Buhari
    • Alleged lack of fairness by the leadership of the Senate

    According to investigation, the Senators bared their minds at an Executive Session on Thursday to conduct a post-mortem on what went wrong.

    It was learnt that the star of the session was Sen. Kabir Marafa (Zamfara) who opened up on many issues affecting the unity of the Senate.

    Others who spoke were  Senators Abdullahi Adamu (Nasarawa), Dino Melaye (Kogi), Ogola Foster (Bayelsa), Senate Leader Ahmad Lawan and the Deputy President of the Senate,  Senator Ike Ekweremadu, who presided over the session.

    A ranking senator said: “At the session, Senators put Abdullahi Adamu on the spot. He was accused of making his residence available for meetings by members of the Parliamentary Support Group of which Senator Omo-Agege is its secretary.

    “But Adamu said he had no hand in the invasion of the chamber.

    “He also said the PSG is a caucus group outside the chamber as it is the case with the Like Minds (supporting Saraki), the Unity Forum, the Northern Senators Forum and others in the Senate.

    “He said parliamentary caucus is legitimate all over the world.”

    It was gathered that Senator Marafa stole the show when he said all senators were guilty of the mess the Senate has found itself.

    He picked on Adamu, saying: “Some of you in this PSG today abandoned the Unity Forum to support Saraki’s emergence as Senate President. When it was convenient, you opened doors for Saraki.

    “This same Senator Adamu was once with Saraki and at a point spoke against President Muhammadu Buhari. I belonged to the Unity Forum, I did not work for Saraki but he appointed me a strategic committee chairman.

    A Senator from the North-West said: “At the session, Senators backing Saraki spoke and those who belong to the left wing. We all focused on how our chamber became polluted with vested interests.”

    Asked of Adamu’s fate, the Senator added: “It is still shaky, we do not know what they will do to him.”

    “We cited the fact that the Senate leadership has some favourites through which motions were usually imposed on members.

    “The Senators tagged Like Minds behind Saraki would have met before any sitting and they will just ride us roughshod in the Senate.

    “Those in Like Minds do not allow alternative views in the Senate. Once a Senator speaks against a motion Saraki and his ‘boys’ are interested in, you are tagged as anti-leadership in a Senate that we are all equals.

    “For instance, we condemned Omo-Agege’s behaviour, but some of us suspected that he acted out of frustration.

    “When the debate on Order of Elections was on, Omo-Agege called for a division but he was ignored by the Senate President.

    “Yet after this same Omo-Agege apologised for expressing his dissenting views, he was suspended through a script already acted by the Like Minds.

    “The Senate Committee on Ethics and Privileges has been doing a hatchet man’s job.

    “Some Senators said the way out is to return the Senate to a chamber of equality, robust debates, accepting the reality of dissent views and allowing caucuses to exist and fairness to all.”

    Another Senator said: “Well, some of our colleagues expressed regrets that some Senators have been made lesser than the other.”

    On his part, Senator Dino Melaye pointed accusing finger at the PSG for the invasion of the chamber.

    In a fit of anger, he added: “They still had a meeting yesterday (Wednesday).”

    The Senate Leader, Ahmad Lawan, was said to have appealed for calm, understanding and tolerance.

    But Senator Ogola Foster redirected the session to the issue of the invasion of the chamber.

    He said: “We should face the reality. Someone desecrated the Senate chamber. We must investigate it and take appropriate action.”

    The Deputy President of the Senate, Dr. Ike Ekweremadu, took time to listen to all views and expressed the resolve of the Senate to protect the nation’s democracy.

    A senator from the South-East said: “Although we did not arrive at any resolution at the Executive Session, Ekweremadu’s address later on the floor was a summary of what transpired.

    “We want an investigation into the invasion, and the law must take its course.”