LAGOS, April 19 (Xinhua) -- Nigerians have condemned the illegal removal of the mace from the Senate Chamber on Wednesday by some hoodlums suspected to be politically motivated.
The mace is the symbol of authority in the two Chambers of the Senate and the House of Representative.
Those who reacted to the incident described it as a disgrace to Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation.
Although, the police said it had recovered the mace stolen from the chambers of the Senate by unidentified persons.
Suspected thugs invaded the senate chambers during plenary and carted away the mace. Aremu Adeniran, a police spokesperson said the mace was abandoned under the flyover before the city gate in Abuja where a passerby saw it and alerted the police.
The Senate's spokesman, Sabi Abdulahi, in a statement, alleged that the hoodlums, led by a suspended member, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, walked into the Senate's plenary and seized the mace.
Abdullahi described the incident as a treasonable act, as it amounted to forceful takeover of the Senate.
Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, told reporters in Abuja, the country's capital that the invasion of the Senate is a threat to Nigeria's democracy, adding that the invasion of the parliament is not acceptable to any person.
In his reaction, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yusuff Lasun, described the seizure of Senate mace by some hoodlums as mockery of the country's democracy.
According to him, the 8th Assembly will make sure that democracy works in the country.
In the same vein, Chidi Onuma, Coordinator at African Center for Media and Information Literacy, described the incident as frightening.
Onuma said the mace is supposed to be the symbol of Nigeria's democracy from the legislative point of view.
"So, if a stranger can just walk in and take it away, that tells us how weak the nature of the legislature is," he added.
On his part, Frank Tietie, Executive Director at the Citizens Advocacy for Social and Economic Rights (CASER), said the entire event was a political conspiracy.
Tietie said the act was an insult to the entire nation, an insult that Nigeria will not be able to easily recover from in the eyes of other countries.
Also, a former governor of Kaduna State, Balarabe Musa, described Wednesday's snatching of the mace in the Senate by suspected hoodlums as disgraceful.
Musa added that the incident was dangerous, not only for democracy, but for security, noting that the saga was more dangerous to security than it was to democracy.
The former governor said he would not be quick to blame any one personality for the incident, but the saga questioned the morality of some of the country's leaders.
He described the tension created by political and security issues in the land as a time bomb.
In his reaction, Ezenwa Nwagwu, Chairman of the Partners for Electoral Reform, said the act must have been planned by some people not comfortable with the leadership of the assembly.
Nwagwu said the incident was an indication of lack of cohesion in the national assembly.
