Poet, writer and rights activist, Prof. Ogaga Ifowodo, has condemned the 90-day suspension placed on the senator representing Delta Central, Ovie Omo-Agege, by his colleagues.
The Senate had on Thursday, last week, slammed a 90-day suspension on Omo-Agege, over his comment that the amendment to the Electoral Act 2010 to reorder the sequence of polls in a general election was targeted at President Muhammadu
Buhari.
The Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions had investigated Omo-Agege’s comment based on a petition by Senator Dino Melaye, and found him culpable.
Condemning the senators’ action, Ifowodo, who teaches Poetry and Literature in English at Texas State University, San Marcos, USA., said, “I am, like many concerned Nigerians, unhappy about the high-handedness and gross intolerance displayed by the Senate
in suspending Senator Ovie Omo-Agege for expressing a view contrary to the majority position of his fellow senators on the matter of the acceptable sequence of the 2019 general elections.
“The action, in my opinion, violates the most fundamental tenet of democracy, to wit, that sovereignty resides with the people. The question arises: can a cohort of legislators deny the people of a constituency the right of representation for a day, never mind 90?
“Even if Senator Omo-Agege were accused of a crime-which is not the case-should the Senate be accuser and judge? Mind, this is not a suspension from a privilege-chairmanship or membership of a committee-but of the right to represent his people, those who elected him to the Senate in the
first place!
“And there is the matter of his fundamental right to free speech, including necessarily the right to dissent, however unpopular his view may be.
Ifowodo an indigene of Delta State, stressed that Senator Omo-Agege’s people of Delta Central must not be denied representation without his recall or conviction by a court.
“Whatever the Senate rules might say, whatever powers they may confer, whatever the precedents, it is time to examine their constitutional and democratic purport,” Ifowodo queried.