Senator Ovie Omo-Agege,
representing the Delta Central Senatorial District, has lambasted the House of
Representatives for approving his suspension over alleged involvement in the
invasion of the Senate chamber and mace snatching.
The senator, in a statement he
personally signed on Sunday entitled, ‘My Advice to the House of
Representatives on its Purported Resolution to Suspend Me: Eat It or Better
Still, Shove It’, also called President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki a
“dictator”.
The Senate had on April 12, 2018,
suspended Omo-Agege for 90 legislative days for dragging the chamber to court
over the amendment to the Electoral Act 2010 which seeks to reshuffle the
sequence of polls during general elections.
Omo-Agege said: “Without much
ado, I state without ‘equivocation’ whatsoever that the purported House
resolution is just an act of utter lawlessness by one ordinary, first among
equals in the Senate, who prides himself as a most intolerant dictator. The
Urhobo people that I represent with honour in the Senate do not respect
oppressors or dictators.
“As a good student of
Constitutional Law, I am unlike the one who knows nothing about the law yet
misuses our legislative processes and instruments to violently violate my
rights as a Senator of the Federal Republic duly elected by my people to
represent them in the Red Chamber just like him.
“Not being a member of the House
of Representatives, I cannot be subjected to any form of investigation or
disciplinary action by the House.”
The lawmaker pointed out that
with Sections 88 and 89 of the Constitution, the National Assembly had no power
whatsoever to investigate a crime.
He said, “The removal of the
Senate’s mace was described in the Senate as a ‘heinous crime.’ For this reason
and much more, it is a matter now under an active criminal investigation by the
police. Usurping the constitutional functions of the police, Hon. Betty Apafia
ignored this fact and elected to submit a so-called report on this incident and
inflicted incalculable harm on my person thereby. There must be consequences
for this.”
Omo-Agege noted that there were
several judicial decisions that legislative houses could not suspend their
members.
He added matters of his
suspension by the Senate and National Assembly’s investigation of the mace
theft were before the court, making the action by the House subjudice.
He said, “It is elementary that
parties are not supposed to take steps to foist fait accompli on a court that
is already seized of issues between such parties. But some would rather turn
the Senate into a Banana Republic by arrogating to themselves powers they do
not have and acting with disgusting lawlessness and brazenness.
“The irony is that some of these
same people were allowed to enjoy the full benevolence that our legal system
provides by remaining ‘unsuspended’ or ‘unremoved’ from their legislative
positions when they had challenges with the law. Even much more ironical is
that these same intolerant dictators often dare to unjustly accuse our dear President
Muhammadu Buhari of some fairy dictatorship.”
“In all, let me say that if they
ever assumed that I will be a victim of the travesty of justice, violation of
our Constitution, and untrammelled impunity being piped from the Senate by a
dictator, they are dead wrong. My people and I will lose nothing as a result of
this sickening dictatorship in the Senate. This is a fight the Senate dictator
and drummer must lose. He has bitten more than he can chew.”
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