The madness that started in Rivers made its way to Edo, had a stop over in Ekiti and finally made its way to Abuja on Wednesday April 18, 2018. You would think the scion of a respected legal family would understand the power of the law and its sovereignty when addressing perceived injustice, but this is Nigeria, where anything happens.  The mace snatching tour couldn’t have ended without making an appearance at the National Assembly.

The suspended enator from Delta state, a legal practitioner that chose to embark on an act of illegality, the son of a former Judge, and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria himself ruined his credentials by the show of shame that ended in mace snatching at the National Assembly. He had made his way into the complex and finally the chamber without so much as a confrontation by the dozens of military and paramilitary personnel we assign to our lawmakers to ‘protect’ them from some magical enemy.

As seen in the video broadcasted by media houses, Omo-Agege walked in like the head of a group of gangsters, he was in the front while his thugs flanked him on either side, intimidating the senate’s security.  He made his way to the front while his thugs made their way to where the National Assembly mace was placed. Like an hungry lion, they pounced on the Sergeant-At-Arms while one of them picked the mace and fled the senate building with it.

The last time such happened at the National Assembly was when the late Chuba okadigbo took the mace to his village. Omo-Agege has repeated the same thing. As much as several individuals are debating the legality or otherwise of Omo-Agege’s suspension, he has chosen a wrong way to fight his cause.

What he did was an act of treasonable felony by choosing to sack an arm of Government. Irrespective of what we might think of National Assembly members, they still remain the only body representing the over 180m citizens in the country. As a senior member of the Bar, Omo-Agege would have approached a court of law to fight his cause or is he saying he no longer has hope in the Judiciary to grant Justice without fear or favour?

He chose to expose the National Assembly and the country to international ridicule in the committee of nations. Also, the executive has made itself culpable in this scenario, since 2015 till date there has been a calculated attempt to demarket the National Assembly by the executive through various prosecution of its members while those in the executive are walking freely.

This has nonetheless slowed down the wheels of progress of the nation. At the moment, the 2018 budget is yet to be passed, now we have all these scandals happening when elections is less than 10 months away which means Omo Agege’s grievances are really not about the citizens but the personal interest of the selected few.

This clash of interests has brought Nigeria to a standstill and we need to act fast. It will be in the interest of Justice and protection of critical institutions that Senator Ovie Omo-Agege is prosecuted and punished to serve as deterrent to others. Our inability to punish past offenders has made mace stealing a fashion. No it is a crime!

tosin adesina