NASS constitutes committee to investigate Senate invasion

The Senate on Tuesday constituted a joint committee with the House of Representatives to investigate the April 18 invasion of the upper chamber by suspected political thugs.

President of the Senate, Dr Bukola Saraki, announced this at plenary held after a two-hour closed-door meeting of the lawmakers.

Saraki said: “we resolved for the constitution of the joint committee of the Senate and the House of Representatives to investigate the incident of April 18 to look at the factors leading to it.

“The committee will also make recommendations to ensure it does not happen again in any of the two chambers.

“We also mandated our committees on Security and Police to engage with the Director-General, Department of State Services and Inspector-General of Police to look at how to strengthen security of the National Assembly.

“This is to ensure that this kind of security lapses will not occur.”

He commended the chamber staff for their gallantry and courageous actions taken during the invasion.

“I want to thank all of you and everybody – the Sergeant-at-Arms, all the team – for the work that you did, not only as individuals, but also for this institution and for the country at large.

“As we keep on saying, this institution or the legislature is the true representation of democracy; as long as we defend this legislature, you defend the democracy in this country. I thank all of you for the call to duty,” Saraki said.

He stressed the need to tighten security within the precinct of the National Assembly.

“I need to call on all members of the public to please cooperate with us in this era that we have to definitely tighten the movement in the National Assembly.

“Clearly, there are some loopholes that we have to tighten and in doing that, we seek your cooperation,” he said.