Senator Bukola Saraki, left and Senator EkweremaduTHE ongoing political drama in the country, ostensibly geared towards the 2019 general election, reached a near crescendo during the week with the defection of 13 senators and 34 members of the House of Representatives from the All Progressives Congress (APC). On the morning of that defection, men of the Nigeria Police Force and other security operatives took over the entrances to the residences of Senate President Bukola Saraki and his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu. They were said to have arrived the homes in the early hours of Tuesday. According to media sources, the move was a government ploy to prevent the duo from gaining access to the National Assembly complex. This was to ensure that the defection plan of legislators earlier planned for the day did not materialise. However, while Saraki eventually got to the Senate chamber to preside over plenary, Ekweremadu couldn’t, as the siege dragged on for a long period.
Surprisingly, the police denied the allegation, insisting that policemen neither besieged the residence of the Senate President nor attempted to arrest him. The force also denied that its personnel cordoned off Ekweremadu’s residence. In a statement he issued on Tuesday, the Force Public Relations Officer (FPRO), Jimoh Moshood, maintained that there was no “authorised deployment of police personnel to besiege the residence of the Senate President or his deputy as reported in the media.” The police personnel in the pictures shown in the media, he claimed, were those in the convoy of the Senate President and others attached to him. The FPRO however said that the Inspector General of Police had directed an investigation into the incident.
Piecing together all the available reports on the alleged siege, it is impossible to accept the police and the IGP’s claim of ignorance of what transpired in the Senate President and his deputy’s residences. A careful analysis of the positioning of the policemen and vehicles in the residence of Saraki shows clearly that the police were not there on a friendly stopover. What was revealed was a detachment of officers who had a work to do and who went about their job brooking no dissent. The FPRO’s statement also gave away the intent of the police. The force spokesman concluded that “the Force will not allow the end of justice to be perverted by this distraction. The Nigeria Police will ensure that the rule of law prevails in this matter.” We wonder what perversion of justice the force was alluding to. What manner of ‘rule of law’ did the police want to prevail? Is it the ‘justice’ of not allowing Saraki and Ekweremadu out of their homes or the alleged plot to ensure that the intending defectors did not have their day in the Senate?
It is apparent that there was a siege on the homes of the two principal officers of the National Assembly. We find no other description for what the police did other than a colossal assault on democracy. If at all there was anything that the Senate President and his deputy had done wrong which warranted police intervention, there are laid-down procedures for inviting them. We are not aware that either of the duo refused to honour a valid invitation, yet the police blocked their residences in a Gestapo fashion. We wonder why Ekweremadu was invited by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to appear before it that morning, yet he was not allowed to leave his residence.
We have said it over and over again that national institutions should not be corrupted, and that the officers at the helms of affairs should not lend themselves to corruption by politicians. The police’s alibi is not only infantile but also ludicrous. So who ordered the siege? What we can see is a Nigeria Police that is descending into the political arena. We are sure that the promise by the IGP to investigate what really transpired is part of the usual tenuous promises which have bedeviled public office in this clime. It is unfortunate that while bandits are on a killing spree in many parts of the country, the police are busy constituting a threat to the country’s democracy by laying a siege to the National Assembly leadership.
We state without any equivocation that this action undermines the independence of the legislature. It is also an assault on constitutionalism. The Senate was invaded recently, and now the residences of its leadership have suffered the brunt of police assault. This must not be condoned under any guise. It is an act of treason. We urge the Federal Government to conduct an impartial investigation into this brutish display of raw power expeditiously, with the results made public. Those who carried out this siege must be sanctioned, otherwise it would be fitting to describe the country’s democracy as a joke.
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Oga Jimi you do realize though the police invasion claim has been refuted by the police and the Police HQ says those police men are part of the SP convoy .