12th December, 2019
The Senate on Thursday mandated its Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters to investigate the alleged invasion of the Federal High Court in Abuja during a court sitting by members of Department of State Security (DSS).
The resolution of Senate followed a point of order brought by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, Sen. Opeyemi Bamidele (APC- Ekiti).
Bamidele cited order 43 of the senate rules, saying: “The reported alleged invasion of the court room by officials of DSS is one issue that has raised a lot of concern in different quarters in Nigeria.
“Mr President, the leadership and members of the judiciary are particularly concerned about this development because they believe that the courtroom is meant to be a sanctuary.
“But for us, as a Senate, we cannot begin to take a position or analyse the issues based on conclusion without facts that we consider incontrovertible yet.
“Much as we cannot jump into conclusion, we cannot pretend that Nigerians are concerned about this development.
“The reason, I chose to come under order 43, is that so that we don’t debate on this issue that we don’t seem to have incontrovertible facts yet.
“In view of this, I suggest we mandate our committee on National Security to investigate and report back to this Senate.”
The President of the Senate, Mr Ahmad Lawan, in his remark said that order 43 did not allow the Senate to debate the matter now.
He said the matter affected the judiciary.
Lawan suggested that the Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters investigate the matter and report back to Senate in one week.
On Tuesday, the House of Representatives took a similar decision, directing the relevant house committees to investigate the event surrounding the re-arrest of the founder of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore in the Federal High Court.
The motion was moved by Minority Leader, Rep. Ndudi Elumelu (PDP-Delta) under Matters of Urgent Public Importance at the plenary presided over by the Speaker, Mr Femi Gbajabiamila on Tuesday.
The committees are National Security and Intelligence, Judiciary, and Human Rights.
Elumelu described the invasion of the court by the unidentified persons as “disregard for the rule of law”.
“The videos emerging in public domain shows these unidentified person trying to bundle Omoyele Sowore and his co-accused Olawale Bakare away from the courtroom room, while Sowore’s supporters were resisting them, which is an abuse to the sanctity of the courtroom”, he said.