We Will Resort To Self Representation, If Omo-Agege Is Not Recall, Group Tells Senate Leadership

Peeved by alleged injustice meted against their representative in the National Assembly, a group, Delta Central Collective Base (DCCB), in Abraka, Ethiope East Local Government Area of Delta State has called on the leadership of the Senate to honourably allow Senator Ovie Omo-Agege to continue to represent them without any hindrance, threatening to resort to self or collective representation.

The group wondered how the seat of their representative, suspended Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, would be vacant for the rest of the eight Assembly without anybody speaking on their needs, alleging that it was a deliberate attempt to shut out the fourth largest ethnic group in the country which he represents.     

DCCB, in a protest letter addressed to the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, and copied President Muhammadu Buhari as well as all the security agencies, on Thursday maintained that the suspension of their senator and Delta Central from the Senate was extremely provocative.

The group was particularly angry that Omo-Agege was being sanctioned for associating with about 60 other serving senators but as a frontline member and Secretary of the Parliamentary Support Group for President Buhari was suspended while others were left alone.

DCCB in the letter signed by its Chairman, Chief Clever Akpovona Egbeji, expressed dismay of how expressing a dissenting opinion on a contentious amendment to Section 25 of the Electoral Act, 2010 regarding election sequence became an offence against the Senate for which a senator was purportedly suspended for 90 legislative days.

The group stated further in the letter that under the constitution, a senator can only vacate his seat if he dies, resigns, recalled, decamps from the party on whose platform he was elected (without a division in that party) or he is otherwise removed by an appropriate court as such, the Senate has no constitutional powers to suspend or nullify a senator’s elected to represent his people.

The group therefore asked the leadership of the senate honourably and urgently to allow their senator to continue to represent them in the Senate without any hindrance whatsoever, vowing that they will not allow anyone to expel them from Nigeria which their allegiance, patriotism and contribution were unquestionable unchallenged.

DCCB warned that if the Senate fails to allow Senator Omo-Agege to represent them in the Senate, they would resort to self or collective representation by going to the Senate physically in their numbers to represent themselves in the Senate, noting that their removal, without any constitutional basis from decision making in the Senate was a very clear existential threat to them in the Nigerian state.