Senate to Question IGP, DSS DG Over Invasion By Thugs

Senate to Question IGP, DSS DG Over Invasion By Thugs

The Nigerian Senate on Thursday resolved to invite Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Ibrahim Idris and Director-General of Department of State Service (DSS) Lawal Daura, next week to brief it on investigations into the recent invasion of the National Assembly complex by thugs who went away with the mace.

The mace was recovered after a high-powered investigation on Thursday, and the Senate says it intends to unravel the matter that brought national embarrassment, TheNation writes.

“I want to assure Nigerians that we will never waver in the responsibility they have elected us to shoulder. We will all stand together to defend this institution of the parliament and our democracy. We will never fear to legislate; and we will never legislate out of fear,” Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu said in an address at plenary.

This comes after the suspected instigator, Senator Ovi Omo-Agege got an injunction at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court stopping the police and DSS from arresting him.

Confirming to his colleagues that the mace had been recovered, Ekweremadu who presided over plenary, said despite the recovery “it still beats the imagination of Nigerians and the civilised world that the attackers passed through the several security checks and barriers into the National Assembly and the inner recesses of this chamber and also escaped with the mace into thin air despite the well-known fortified surroundings of this parliament.”

He insists that what happened on Wednesday must not be allowed to go unpunished or to be swept under the carpet, adding that the Senate will get to the root of the matter.

He called on the police and DSS to “ensure that all those, who plotted, aided, abetted, and executed this dastardly affront on our democracy and belittled Nigeria before the international community are brought to book to serve as a deterrent to others.”

In a statement entitled: “The affront on our laws and institutions must not go unpunished”, Ekweremadu said: “This incident has also brought to the fore the case many of us have always made for a decentralised police system. Ordinarily, a big institution like the National Assembly should have its own police, apart from the sergeants-at-arms. However, the security of this parliament is fully outside the control of the National Assembly. Instructively, the same gangsterism that was witnessed here yesterday (Wednesday) has been recorded in various state Houses of Assembly.”