Recent invasion of the Senate and snatching of its symbol of authority-the mace by a band of hoodlums, is bad news for our democracy. The bandits who struck immediately a suspended member, Ovie Omo-Agege entered the plenary, attacked and intimidated members injuring the Sergeant-at-arms as they made away with the mace.
Curiously, security at the National Assembly on that fateful day was so loose that the attackers accomplished their devious objective and vamoosed into the thin air, without any challenge from the array of enforcement agencies manning that critical arm of government. Omo-Agege has been accused of masterminding the invasion given the uncanny coincidence of his entry with the attack. But he denied having a hand in the despicable incident.
An apparently bemused Senate had to secure a spare mace with which it continued its deliberations. It then proceeded to issue a stern order to law enforcement agencies to recover the stolen mace with 24 hours. And as fate would have it, the police were so efficient that they recovered the lost mace putatively under the flyover within the same time frame. Yes, the mace has been recovered. But the implications of the invasion for democracy will linger for a long time to come.
Not unexpectedly, a number of theories have cropped up given the messy circumstances of the invasion and snatching of the symbol of authority of the Senate. The frosty relationship between the Senate and the presidency appear to have accentuated these theories. Allegations have been traded to the effect that the presidency has a hand in the unfortunate incident. There are two reasons for this.
The first is that the issue culminating to the suspension of the warring senators suspected to be behind the invasion, hovers round their membership of a parliamentary support group purporting loyalty to the president. The second relates to the curious indifference of the security chain within the National Assembly that enabled the hoodlums penetrate the Senate carting away the mace without challenge. These add up to reinforce the feeling that security at the National Assembly was compromised on the day in question. It is therefore being contended that this could not have been possible without instruction from above.
For, it remains to be conjectured the business those thugs have with Senate’s symbol of authority or the attraction it offered them. It is neither a commodity for social exchange nor of any real value (monetary or otherwise) outside the chambers of the Senate. Its attraction could have been nothing other than the lure to deploy it to subvert the authority of that upper legislative body. It was therefore intended as a coup d’état by the masterminds of the invasion. That is why the matter should be viewed with all the seriousness it deserves.
This is not the first time in our contemporary political history the mace has been cornered by aggrieved legislators to effect leadership change in very controversial circumstances. During the regime of Obasanjo, late Senate president, Chuba Okadigbo had to spirit away that symbol of authority when some of his colleagues were being goaded to have him impeached. He refused to surrender the mace but was eventually impeached in some cloudy circumstances.
There was also the case of Rivers State during the governorship of Chibuike Amaechi where a group of about five legislators cornered the mace and impeached the speaker without securing the mandatory two-thirds majority constitutional stipulations. These are by no means the only instances. And behind each disputation around the mace, lay a hidden agenda to effect leadership change. The case in point could not have been different.
Perhaps, the equation changed because of the smartness of the Senate leadership in producing a spare mace with which they continued the business of the day. Having been beaten to their invidious game, the masterminds were compelled to abandon both the mace and their game plan. Without the way both the Senate and the House of Representatives moved to check the desecration of the national legislature, we would have seen a group of senators gaining access to the Senate to announce the impeachment of its leadership.
Even with extant situation, our democracy has been ridiculed and the National Assembly defiled. If a band of hoodlums could have easy access to the National Assembly to the extent of attacking members without challenge, then nothing prevents murderers and armed bandits from invading that third arm of the government to deal with whosoever they wished.
Condemnations have come from all corners indicating how bad the incident is. The federal government has also condemned the attack with the Senate setting up inquisition involving the House of Representatives to unravel the circumstances of the invasion. It has also promised stricter security measures even as it seeks to unravel all about the invasion. That is the way to go. It is important to get at the root of the matter by determining the acts of omission or commission of security agencies that aided the hoodlums to despoil the National Assembly in the manner they did without being either stopped or apprehended.
It is not enough to condemn the invasion. Neither would recriminations suffice. Our security agencies should come clear with their finding in that national mess to clear suspicions of connivance and compromise. It is not good that they appear to have left the Senate with investigations into that breach of national security. The seeming mystery over the invasion of the Senate adds to the specter of insecurity hovering around the country.
All these, point to the increasing inability of the government to maintain law and order such that citizens are frequently attacked and killed with our security agencies appearing utterly helpless. Each time such senseless killings occur, we take recourse to pontifications and platitudes in the name of condemning the atrocious acts as if denunciations are all there is to stemming the tide. Federal government’s recourse to condemnations of the recurring and well planned killings by herdsmen especially in Benue, Taraba and Nassarawa states are increasingly getting irritating in the absence of concrete action to stem the tide.
We have been severally treated to these condemnations and promises to protect the sanctity of human life. But no sooner these trite pronouncements are made than we are confronted by fresh sights of unprovoked and senseless horror killings of innocent people both children and the aged in the most despicable manner. Such was again the situation in Benue where Fulani herdsmen attacked an early morning mass service killing two Catholic priests while celebrating mass and about 17 other worshippers. As the federal government was condemning the atrocious act and pontificating on its resolve to secure the lives of all citizens, more people were attacked and killed in other parts of that troubled state.
The nation is tired of all these pontifications and high sounding pledges full of sound and fury but signifying practically nothing. Immediate solutions to the mindless killings are the things that can assuage the people now. We need immediate end to the killings and not trite talks that leave the people with a verity of the Hobbesian state of nature depicted by the war of man against his fellow man. That is the point this country has miserably found itself now.
Practical solutions to the festering crisis were provided by the House of Representatives when it recommended the declaration of killer herdsmen as terrorists and security profiling of all herdsmen in the country. Our law enforcement agencies must be directed to profile all herdsmen who should be provided with identity cards. Such profiling has becoming urgent given conflicting claims by the government linking the spate of killings to influx of foreign armed men.
They have also asked that service chiefs be relieved of their appointments to make way for more efficient and proactive hands. Time is ticking out. We must halt the carnage now or take responsibility for a possible relapse to the atavism of the state of nature.