According to the dictionary, a mace is an ornamental stick carried by an official or placed somewhere as a symbol of authority.
In parliamentary settings patterned after the Westminster system, the mace is the symbol of authority without which a legislative House cannot meet or pass laws. They are carried into the chambers by the sergeant-at-arms and put on the House clerk’s table while parliament is in session to show that it is fully constituted with most members in attendance. The mace is often removed after every parliamentary session.
A familiar script
Forceful seizure or stealing of the mace in state houses of assembly across the country is a common occurrence. One frightening instance was the fracas in the Rivers State House of Assembly where the mace became a convenient weapon of choice that was deployed to batter the skulls of some of the members. However, instances of such at the Senate or House of Representatives have been very rare.
Penultimate Wednesday, a group of hoodlums entered the Senate chamber and succeeded in taking away the mace which was its symbol of authority. It was later reportedly found under a bridge in the capital city of Abuja.
Fingers were pointed at Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, who in a suspicious manner resurfaced in the chamber after having been suspended by the Senate. He was later released by the police after claiming innocence and denying being part of the plot to cause chaos in the Senate.
The incident was not the first time the Senate would temporarily lose its mace. It also happened in 2000 during the tenure of Chuba Okadigbo, as Senate president between November 1999 and August 2000. Then an alleged contract scandal involving Okadigbo had thrown the Senate into a crisis and a plot supposedly by those opposed to him was hatched to remove him.
In a bid to scuttle the plot, Okadigbo adjourned plenary and took the mace away from the National Assembly to an unknown location. He was reported to have taken the mace to Ogbunike where he hid it for weeks.
Senator Joseph Waku, a member of that Senate, speaking on the issue in an n interview years later reportedly said: “There was a plan to remove Okadigbo and we got wind of it and adjourned and took the mace. But the then Deputy Senate President, Haruna Abubakar, attempted to reconvene the Senate.
“They went and arranged for a fake mace, but we intercepted it. Haruna wanted to preside as acting Senate president.”
A symbol or a weapon?
So what is it about the mace that makes people to go for it each time they want to cause a disruption or forcefully effect leadership change in the assembly?
A new argument has however been introduced to the mace snatching narrative with the report quoting a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr Femi Falana saying it was not necessary for the mace to be in the House for plenary to take place.
“There was nowhere in the constitution that a mace must be provided before the Senate and others could sit or conduct legislative business.By virtue of section 54 of the constitution either of the National Assembly arm is competent to sit and conduct proceedings once the quorum of members is formed.
“The said quorum is one third of all the members of the legislative house concerned. In all cases in which the impeachment of state governors had been annulled and set aside by the Supreme Court and other courts it was due to the failure of the Houses of Assembly concerned to comply with the provision for quorum which is two-thirds of all the members in line with the section 188 of the constitution,” Falana stated.
He had argued further that the mace was an inherited colonial legacy, but when Nigeria became a Republic in 1963 the paraphernalia of office and title of the leaders of the House were retained, including when the country changed to the presidential system of government.
“Even though Nigeria adopted the presidential system of government since 1979, our legislators have continued to retain vestiges of the Westminster parliamentary system… but with time, the mace, wig and gown which are not provided for in our statutes will disappear from our legislative Houses,” he concluded.
A Minna, Niger State-based lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Ibrahim Isiyaku, however, disagrees totally with Falana saying though the mace may not be mentioned in the Nigerian Constitution, “by convention, the mace is a symbol of authority of the Legislature, Even the United Kingdom, Nigeria’s former colonial masters “is not a constitutional society but a society governed by convention and of course by law.”
He said further:”But the conventions are even more adhered to than some of the laws because the democracy we are practising in Nigeria is an amalgam of the conventions and laws including the constitution.
“That is why even lawyers in courts will support their arguments with common law.”
He pointed out that in the interpretation of laws by the courts; they also rely not only on conventional laws but also on equity and good conscience. He stressed that it is for that reason that lawyers argue and support their arguments with natural justice, equity and good conscience in court.
“And as long as everyone, both the legislature and other citizens of the country considered it as such, so by convention, it is the symbol of authority of the legislature” he maintained.
An Ilorin-based legal practitioner, Mr Dele Moses, agrees with Isiyaku that the mace is indeed a symbol of authority of the legislature and it is so by convention. However, he believes that if it must cease to be so, it will require legislation.
“I think if it is to be done away with, a law may be put in place in that regard. But as long as there is no such law, the recognition and status that have been accorded it from conventional practices may remain,” he said.
For another Ilorin-based lawyer, Abiodun Fagbemi, the importance of the mace rests on the peculiarity of each nation’s democracy and its display is mostly ritualistic and obligatory.
“Lately due to peculiarities of some democratic nations and the seeming autonomy to practise democracy in their own ways, they do away with the mace. What they rely on is when a quorum is formed and if there is no section of the constitution that specifically states that without mace, no legislation could be convened, it will be difficult to say its absence or presence is legal or not,” he said.
Though vestiges of colonialism are still so much with us, the mace obviously one of those, may still be around for a little while longer given our love for symbols, titles and paraphernalia of office. But will the mace disappear gradually from our legislative chambers as Falana argued that “with time, the mace, wig and gown which are not provided for in our statutes will disappear from our legislative Houses”? Only time and intentions [good or bad] of the ruling class will determine the fate of the mace.
- Additional reports by BIOLA AZEEZ and ADELOWO OLADIPO
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