Osinbajo, Ekweremadu meet over snatched mace

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo and Ike Ekweremadu, deputy senate president, are currently holding a meeting at the presidential villa in Abuja.

The meeting is taking place hours after Ovie Omo-Agege, a senator from Delta state, led suspected thugs into the senate chamber to cart away the mace, which is the symbol of authority of the legislature.

President Muhammadu Buhari and Senate President Bukola Saraki are attending officials functions abroad.

Theodore Orji, a lawmaker from Abia state, was speaking on the floor of the senate when the unwanted visitors broke in.

The senate immediately went into a closed-door session after which a spare mace was brought and it reconvened.

Speaking with state house correspondents at the end of the meeting, Ekweremadu said he came to update Osinbajo on what happened earlier at the senate.

“I’m sure you are aware of the senate invasion today and we have to come and brief the vice-president because the president is not in town. It is appropriate for him to know. We are in a democracy; we are all in one government,” he said.

“It is the responsibility of the president or the vice-president to ensure that there is law and order in the country and once we have this kind of major development it is important that he is briefed at the earliest opportunity.

“The senate president is out of the country, it is, therefore, my responsibility to come over and brief the vice-president who has sympathised with us over what happened and he is going to join forces with us to ensure that we get to the root of the matter to make sure that this will not happen again.

“For us, it’s a threat to our democracy, the invasion of the parliament is not acceptable to any person, its not acceptable to me, its not acceptable to the VP, its not acceptable to my colleagues, I believe its not also acceptable to the president so those who acted this script must be on their own.”

He also appealed to the media to do its best in discouraging this “kind of brigandage”.

Ekweremadu also criticised Omo-Agege, wondering the right he had to enter into the red chamber when he was on suspension.

“All we need to do as a country is to ensure that this is forestalled and I want to appeal to the media to help us discourage this kind of brigandage so that people have to behave in a very responsible manner. But let me assure you that we are on top of the situation, we did our sitting today and we are going to continue tomorrow,” he said.

“Having suffered suspension, does Omo-Agege have legal right to enter the chamber? It was a breach of the law for him to force himself into the chambers, as I said police is still investigating we are going to find out the details of those who aided him to come in and then some of them I believe have been arrested and we will get to the root of the matter.”