“Many years ago, there lived a Jurist, Omo Agege, honored and respected, who convicted and sentenced an armed robber, Lawrence Anini to death in 1987. Well, Anini deserved such conviction because, in our Nigerian constitution, robbery is an offense punishable by law.
“However, 31 years later, the ghost of the late Anini, begins to trouble and possess the son of the late eminent jurist, to the extent that the suspended senator now approves of thuggery and brigandage even inside the hallowed chambers of the Senate.
“The name Omo-Agege was hitherto highly revered and noted for integrity. Oh, what a negative/unpalatable mode cum way of getting into the history books.”
These are the words of a Delta-based lawyer, Mr. Socrates Ehigiator while commenting on Senator Ovie Omo-Agege’s political travails.
Like the biblical thief, embattled Senator Omo-Agege did the unthinkable, when he allegedly led five armed hoodlums into the revered Red Chamber and snatched the mace, which is the symbol of authority of the Senate.
Pundits and political observers who have keenly followed the development, are yet to come to grips with what played out on the floor of the Senate last Wednesday. While his supporters, who are hailing him from a distance see nothing wrong in his action, his traducers are calling for his head like that of John the Baptist.
The beginning
Unlike other senators, who came to the Red Chamber through the ballots, Omo-Agege made his inroads into the Senate through the back door – the judiciary. His swearing-in by the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki in late January 2016, signaled the beginning of a turbulent political journey for the newcomer.
Back there in Delta Central Senatorial District, where he represents, it was jubilation galore on the day he was sworn-in. His people who danced around some streets in Ughelli, Orogun, Sapele, Effurun, and Okpe, had described Omo-Agege’s inauguration in the Senate as a good omen for the Urhobo nation.
Unknown to many, Omo-Agege came to the Senate on the platform of the Labour Party. His emergence was sequel to the Appeal Court judgment, which removed Ighoyota Amori of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Omo-Agege showed early signs of rebellion barely one year after he came to the Senate.
His first political battle
Omo-Agege, until March 2017, was the only Labour Party senator in the upper chamber. As soon as he settled down, he quickly jumped ship and dumped his party, which stood by him during his days in the political wilderness.
He left the Labour Party over allegations of irreconcilable divisions in the national leadership of the party. But he was accused by the party hierarchy of masterminding the crisis in the party to prepare a fertile ground for him to defect to another party.
The embattled lawmaker was at some point, a member of the PDP. He jumped ship in 2014 after he failed to secure the PDP governorship ticket in Delta State. For him, the Labour Party was only a means to an end.
The election sequence saga
Omo-Agege is not considered as an influential senator by his colleagues; he is not considered as one of the A-list lawmakers in the upper legislative chamber either. Not many bills or motions are tied to his name. But he suddenly got his voice in February, when the Senate adopted the report of its Conference Committee on Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Despite the fact that the controversial issue of sequencing didn’t emanate from the Senate, but from the House of Representatives, Omo-Agege and his clique added a new twist to the debate, when they alleged that the sequencing was targeted at President Muhammadu Buhari.
At a press conference, Omo-Agege and 10 others repeatedly claimed that Saraki’s Senate wanted to frustrate President Buhari’s re-election bid. To be fair to him, he was not the only senator who made the claim but being a political orphan, he was singled out for ‘persecution’.
Few days after he made the claims, Saraki’s political son, Dino Melaye, did what he is best known for. He raised a point of order on the floor of the Senate. He didn’t stop there. He called on the Senate to probe Omo-Agege. Since there was already a precedent, it was clear that Omo-Agege was going to face the hammer like Ali Ndume.
In a shocking move, the senator publicly apologized the following day and fell short of weeping. A deflated Omo-Agege begged for Melaye’s forgiveness. Ike Ekweremadu, deputy president of the Senate, who presided, praised his statesmanship.
But suddenly, Omo-Agege approached a court and secured an injunction to stop the Senate from investigating him. That action led to a nuclear reaction and in less than one week, he got the hammer and was subsequently suspended.
The invasion
Unlike Ndume, Omo-Agege didn’t take his suspension in good faith. Through pseudo groups, he kept mounting pressure on the Senate to reverse his suspension. His appeal met a brick wall. Like a man pushed to the wall, he opted for a Gestapo approach.
What transpired on Wednesday was a result of a weeklong of a meeting held by some lawmakers at the residence of a former governor cum senator from North Central in Abuja on Tuesday night.
Findings revealed that the snatching of the mace was part of a grand plot to cause a commotion that would have led to the temporal closure of the Senate. It was learned that about 20 lawmakers who attended the meeting had plotted to reconvene with the snatched mace and effect a leadership change.
A Senator who is familiar with what transpired told our correspondent in confidence what happened. He explained how the news of the plot came to the Deputy President of the Senate, Chief Ekweremadu few minutes after the Senate commenced its session on Wednesday.
He said: “What played out on Wednesday didn’t come as a surprise. The only difference is that it happened too suddenly and we didn’t have the needed time to counter them. But I am glad that their plot didn’t work out in the end.
“On Tuesday night in Abuja, there was a meeting held by some senators. At that meeting, they agreed on how to effect a leadership change in the Senate with support from some state actors. But we didn’t know about this until we were already in session on Wednesday.
“If you noticed something, some senators who attended the meeting, were all present on the floor of the Senate that day. These are the same senators who hardly attend proceedings. But because they had a plan, they all attended plenary.
“In that meeting, they plotted that Omo-Agege will forcefully come into the chamber. And that actually happened. As soon as those hoodlums struck and left with the mace, the plotters were thinking that the Senate was going to adjourn out of fear and close the chamber for the day.
“If that had happened, they would have taken over the Senate. They had planned that as soon as the Senate was deserted, they would reconvene with the mace. Even when they are in the minority, they would remove the Senate President, Bukola Saraki and his deputy, Ekweremadu and replace them with loyalists of the president.
“What I think happened was that Omo-Agege was betrayed. We disappointed them. We refused to fight or abandon the Senate for anyone and that stopped their plan for now. I know they are still meeting and they will not give up as long as they see Saraki and Ekweremadu as enemies of President Muhammadu Buhari.”
What next?
Publicly, Omo-Agege may appear like an orphan. Beneath the cotton, he has strong backing. Omo-Agege is the secretary of a disbanded group in the Senate, Parliamentary Support Group (Senate) for President Muhammadu Buhari.
The membership of the group is over 20. Members are drawn from all the geopolitical zones of the country. The group, where Omo-Agege holds a strategic position, is also being supported and allegedly funded by a former governor of an oil-producing state in the South-south and a serving governor from the North-west.
It also has the backing of some unnamed persons in the presidency and in security agencies. Since Omo-Agege found his new love with Buhari, he has been granted an unhindered access to the Presidential Villa, where he is believed to update his allies regularly.
Across the aisle, something bigger awaits him. He may have to bid the Senate goodbye. His current suspension is expected to last until the end of the year. But with what transpired on Wednesday, he may be suspended indefinitely. With Sun.
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