Senate probes SSS court invasion

*Gives committee one week to submit report

The Senate has mandate its committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters to investigate the alleged invasion of a Federal High Court in Abuja.

The committee has one week to report back to plenary for further legislative action.

The directive of the President of the Senate, Senator Lawan Ahmad, on Thursday was sequel to the motion raised by Chairman, Senate committee on judiciary, human rights and legal matters, Senator, Opeyemi Bamidele.

Lawan said “since this is a matter that affects the judiciary. We rather mandate your committee to find out what happened. I will suggest that our committee on judiciary, legal matters and legal matters investigates finds out what exactly happened and report back in one week.”

Senator Opeyemi Bamidele (Ekiti central) had come through a point of order to draw the attention of the Senate to the worry of the judiciary and other stakeholders over the dramatic but legally unacceptable attempt by operatives of the Department of state services to re-arrest the convener of revolution now, Omoyele Sowore inside the Court right in front of the sitting judge, Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu, who was forced to flee the scene.

He said the court was a sanctuary of human right and dignity and should be upheld by all.

His words: “It is a very crucial issue we cannot pretend over as elected representatives of the people especially as chairman of the Senate committee on judiciary, human rights and legal matters, the reported alleged invasion of the courtroom by alleged officials of the Department of State Services is one issue that has raised a lot of concern in different quarters in Nigeria.

“The leadership and members of the judiciary are particularly concerned about this development. They believe, like the rest of us do, that the courtroom is meant to be a sanctuary.

“For us as a senate, we cannot begin to take position or analyse issues based on conclusion without facts that we consider incontrovertible. Yet, much as we cannot just jump into conclusion, is it also a fact that we cannot pretend not to know that Nigerians are not concerned about this development,” he said

It would be recalled that the alleged invasion of the court by operatives of the DSS had gone viral and was widely condemned.

Last week, the federal government said a mechanism has been put in place to investigate the incident.

Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, said this last week and described the incident as a worrisome development that undermined the integrity of the court.