Mace is not a perquisite for Senate to sit ―Falana

HUMAN Rights lawyer and activist, Mr Femi Falana (SAN) on Sunday stated that a mace is not a pre-requisite for the sitting of legislative houses in the country.

Nigerian Tribune recalls that last Wednesday, the Senate was invaded by thugs and the mace on the central table in the Senate was snatched and taken away.

The business of the day could not continue until a replacement was found by the senators.

However, reacting to the development Falana in a statement issued on Sunday clarified that there is nowhere in the constitution is it expressly or impliedly provided that a Mace shall be provided before the Senate or House of Representatives or any other legislative house can sit and conduct legislative business.

“By virtue of section 54 of the Constitution, either of two houses of the national assembly is competent to sit and conduct proceedings once the quorum of the members is formed.

“The said quorum is one-third of all the members of the legislative house concerned.

In all the cases in which the impeachment of state governors has 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 section 188 of the Constitution,” Falana said.

He described the mace as a colonial legacy which the country ought to have abandoned.

“As a colonial legacy, the Mace was part of the Nigerian parliament in 1960 when the Queen of England was our Head of State. Even when the nation became a Republic in 1963 under an indigenous President the paraphernalia of office and title of the Speaker of the British Parliament were fully retained. That was how the Mace which is a symbolic authority of the parliament under a monarchical government was adopted by our Republican parliament,” he said.

He, however, urged legislators to stop attaching undue importance to the conventions of the British Parliament.
“Even though Nigeria adopted the presidential system of government since 1979 our legislators have continued to retain the vestiges of the Westminster parliamentary system. For instance, the leader of a legislative house in Nigeria is addressed as “Right Honourable Speaker” while he/she wears the wig and gown on ceremonial occasions like the head of the British parliament But over time, the mace, wig and gown which are not provided for in our statutes will disappear from our legislative houses”, he stated.

Falana said he found it curious that the national assembly has not deemed it fit to enact a law to protect the mace which is so regularly snatched or stolen by legislators.“

“Since the restoration of democratic rule in Nigeria in May 1999, several houses of assembly have been shut down due to the disappearance of the Mace which is believed to be the authority of every legislative house in the country. In many instances, legislators have been injured while trying to snatch or protect the Mace.

“In fact, the mace in the Senate was once removed and taken away to a remote village in one of the states in the south-east region where it was hidden for weeks to prevent senators from reconvening to carry out the planned impeachment of the Senate President at the material time. But at the end of the day, his colleagues produced another mace and proceeded to remove him from office”, he noted.

“While the investigation into the embarrassing invasion of the Senate by the Police is in progress it is pertinent to point out that the Mace is not a prerequisite for parliamentary business in Nigeria. In other words, the proceedings of a legislative house cannot be invalidated because of the absence of a mace,” Falana reiterated.