Breaking: Police announce recovery of stolen mace within Abuja City gate complex
Less than the given 24 hours, the Nigeria Police on Thursday morning announced the recovery of the Senate Mace, whisked away during Wednesday’s plenary by a gang of thugs suspected to be supporting a suspended Senator, Mr. Ovie Omo-Agege.
A statement in Abuja by the Deputy Force Public Relations Officer, SP Adeniran Aremu, said the Senate mace was recovered under the flyover before Abuja city gate where it was abandoned.
According to the statement, Police had begun a high-powered investigation shortly after the Senate handed down the Mace recovery mandate.
Business Hilights recalls that the presence of a Mace signifies the symbol of legislative authority.
Though the Police statement did not give any information on any form of arrest during the recovery of the Mace at the Abuja Flyover, the statement claimed that “The police teams engaged in massive raids of identified criminal spots/flashpoints, stop and search operations, visibility and confidence-building patrols, intelligence gathering which forced the suspected miscreants to abandon the Mace at a point under the flyover before the City Gate, where a patriotic passerby saw it and alerted the police”.
A source at the national Assembly complex confided in our correspondent that the Police serach team may have been lead by some good Nigerians to the spot where the hoodlums deliberately abandoned the Mace when they observed that Plenary had continued with another Mace at the Senate Chambers on Wednesday.
Police noted in the statement that it thanked members of the public, most especially motorists within Abuja metropolis for their support, cooperation and timely information during the rigorous ‘stop and search’ operations for the recovery of the mace.
The statement however failed to reveal whether the suspected mastermind of the attack, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege would soon be charged to court for being involved in the act which presented Nigerian Senate as helpless people in the presence of visiting Ghanaian parliamentarians.
A credible Senate source revealed that the entire hullabaloo was orchestrated to frustrate Senate final amendment of the Bill seeking to rearrange Nigeria elections sequence, which the suspended senator Omo-Agege had stood against.
Though there are speculations that the lower Chamber of the National Assembly may have dumped the election sequence rearrangement Bill, there is yet no indication of similar step at the Senate.
Deputy Senate president, Chief Ike Ekweremadu who had been presiding over plenary since this week following the attendance of an international conference by the Senate president, Dr. Bukola Saraki had visited Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to brief him on the security breach at the National Assembly on Wednesday, but no official statement had emerged from the presidency as at the time of filing this report.
Observers say the only thing that could explain why the security details at the National Assembly complex failed to rescue the situation and the Mace in particular during the security breach scenario may not be unconnected with the involvements of a very highly powered ring that may or may not have links with the ruling party or government after all.
