Invasion of Senate threat to democracy —SDP

The Social Democratic Party (SDP) has condemned Wednesday’s invasion of the Senate by hoodlums, describing it as a threat to democracy.

The party, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Alfa Mohammed, called on all lovers of democracy to rise against “this dangerous development” and urged the security agencies to do more than recovering the mace, the authority of the legislative body, but arrest and prosecute those responsible for the invasion.

The SDP said the development was also a rehearsal for the orchestration of crisis on a larger scale in the country which, according to it, “we should all resist”.

It said, “We have all struggled to get this democracy we are now enjoying. We should not allow any over-ambitious politician or surrogates of politicians to derail it.

“We have no doubt in our mind that the senator alleged to be behind the ignoble and disgraceful act is not alone in the undemocratic act as we suspect a grand conspiracy to unleash violence and intimidation on the Nigerian legislators in order to coerce them into doing the biddings of the government in power.”

The party, therefore, urged Nigerians to stand with the legislators in their resolve to protect the sanctity of the Senate and, by extension, our hard-earned democracy.

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The SDP expressed concern over what it called the perpetration of executive rascality against the National Assembly, a development which, it said, had continued under the current All Progressives Congress (APC) government.

The party said, “Unless we all stand in solidarity with our lawmakers, our hard-earned democracy may suffer a great setback.

“Be that as it may, we call on the Nigerian police to do a thorough investigation and bring all those involved to book in order to avoid future occurrence.

“We also call on the APC-controlled Federal Government to avoid any temptation to continue to violate the principle of separation of powers as enshrined in our ground norm, the 1999 Constitution as amended, by staying clear of the legislature and the judiciary.

“APC as a party should either check its elected officials or be ready to take the responsibility for any disruption or mockery visited on our hard-earned democracy,” the SDP said.