Senate Attack: Lesson on our security structure – Ekweremadu

Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, says Wednesday’s attack on the Senate is another lesson on the need for Nigeria to re-assess its security structure.
Ekweremadu, according to a statement by his Special Adviser (Media), Uche Anichukwu, stated this when he received the leadership of Nigerian Political Science Association, which visited him at the National Assembly on Friday.
He said: “It is an embarrassment to Nigeria before the international community for someone to drive all the way into the National Assembly Complex, enter the hallowed chamber, and cart away its symbol of authority.
“It shows a breakdown of security and it is a setback to Nigeria’s drive for foreign investment because no one would be ready to invest money in such a system.
“So, it is a lesson that we cannot keep doing the same thing with our security system and expect a different result.
“It is also an irony that the people involved would organise armed bandits to rob the senate of its mace since they understand the implication of what they have done.
“As a parliament, we will ensure that this does not happen again and insist that all the actors behind the drama are brought to book.”
Ekweremadu urged the association to help the nation to rethink its governance and security structures in line with other federal systems.
Earlier, President of the association, Prof. Aloysius-Michaels Okolie, had said that the delegation was at the National Assembly to show solidarity with the senate and condemn what happened.
Okolie said: “Our association is non-partisan, but we must speak the truth, stand by the truth and protect the truth.
“Any group or person that perpetrated what we saw live on national television needed to have his head examined.
“A normal person cannot come here and desecrate the National Assembly, let alone infringe on the Mace.
“It was not really an assault on the National Assembly, but the entire people you have been mandated to represent.
“The desecration of this hallowed chamber is so grave an event that it calls for an immediate national action to avert a re-occurrence and to bring the culprits, whom we regard as bandits, to book.”