Do I look like a mace thief? By Mahmud Jega

I was driving to the office on Thursday last week when I run into a terrible traffic hold up at what Abuja people call Berger, the combined flyover and roundabout in front of construction giant Julius Berger’s head office. It was more than the normal traffic slow down; that one was a standstill. Coming in from the Garki side, I was unhappy that the traffic policeman took ages to tell us to proceed, until I came close to the roundabout and saw that every approach to it was similarly chocked up. Even when the traffic cop finally allowed us to proceed, we only moved on at a pace slower than a snail’s.

All the while I was wondering what happened. At first I thought it was a motor accident. I however wondered what kind of vehicle could have blocked that entire road, except if a Julius Berger earth-moving vehicle upturned. Since there was no sign of panic, I discounted an accident and thought maybe Tijjaniyya sect was staging another city lockdown, as it did the previous Saturday. However, Tijjaniya was celebrating the birthday of Sheikh Nyass and birthdays come up but once in a lunar calendar year. Or maybe it was the Shi’ites, I thought, who have been protesting in the last two years for the release of their detained leader, Sheikh Ibrahim El-Zakzaky. But then, Shi’ites usually protest in Abuja on Mondays and the day was Thursday.

It was with great difficulty that I managed to negotiate halfway round the roundabout and at last saw the cause of the hold up. Half a dozen heavily armed policemen in battle fatigues had blocked our way. They would look at all the approaching vehicles, arbitrarily pick some and ask them to park for a thorough search. Since I was on the innermost of six lanes, I thought it was unlikely that they will stop me, given the traffic chaos that it will cause. But that was exactly what happened. A fierce-looking sergeant pointed at my car with the butt of his gun and instructed me to park. For me to do so, he had to stop five other lanes of vehicles so I could move to the outermost lane. What a mess that caused to the traffic situation.

The cops were already searching other vehicles on the outermost lane so I took my turn in the queue. Before they got to me, I dived into the glove compartment and fished out the vehicle particulars. Presently a cop appeared at my window and I made to hand over to him the particulars. He waved them aside and said he wanted to see my vehicle’s boot. Now, everything in the boot of a Toyota Prado SUV is visible without opening the door but I alighted and opened the boot. The third compartment seats were folded up, and spread in the boot were newspapers, magazines, two fire extinguishers, two pairs of shoes and a few books. The cop examined them carefully, then said he wanted to see underneath.

Wondering all the while what on earth he was looking for, I managed to gather all the trash on one side and with difficulty lifted up the third compartment seat. He peeped under it, then said I should lift up the second one. I folded back the first seat, pushed the trash over it and then lifted the second seat. He was satisfied and said I should move on. It was only hours later when I was browsing the Daily Trust website in the office that I suddenly discovered the reason for my earlier ordeal. The mace snatched from the Senate the day before had been found at the Abuja City gate. While handing it over to the National Assembly Clerk, Deputy Inspector General for Operations said the police had imposed a lockdown on Abuja and had deployed stop and search teams to comb everywhere for the stolen mace. Then it hit me; I was stopped and searched as a suspected mace thief!

Now I began thinking: what gave police the impression that I could be a mace thief? Was it my forbidding mien, my bushy eyebrows, my balding hair, my misty eyes or my visible absent-mindedness, caused by mental writing of articles while at the steering wheel that gave away that impression? Otherwise I have never touched a mace in my life and probably never will. Although I was once the Speaker of a university students’ parliament, my entry and exit was never preceded by a mace bearer, the way speakers do these days. I presided over countless meetings of the students’ parliament without a mace, so there was nothing for anyone to cart away and force an abrupt adjournment of the sitting. Although some readers have sent text messages asking me to contest in the 2019 elections, I took one look at my bank statement and concluded that I will lose a ward councillorship election by a wide margin.

I later saw a video of the mace snatching scene at the Senate. The two men who grabbed it were tall, athletic and very agile.  They snatched the mace from its stand in a jiffy, raced up the Senate Chamber’s stairs, dodged the dozens of uniformed and plainclothes security men dotting the National Assembly premises and vanished without trace. The speed with which they went, it would require an Usain Bolt to catch up with them. I wish I am as agile as that. These days I walk with a little limp, caused by arthritic pain in my right knee. At home and at the office I climb the stairs unsteadily, and children race past me as I climb the stairs at home. I thought the police are well trained to recognise thieves from afar. How on earth did those cops at Berger Junction imagine that I could snatch a mace and run? I am not a violent man at all. I have never fired a gun in my entire life. I have not slaughtered a chicken with my own hands for nearly 30 years now.

As the DIG boasted, police locked down Abuja City in order to find a mace even though Senate has spare maces and resumed sitting 30 minutes after Omo-Agege and his men escaped. For a national economy that is “recovering” by growing at a fraction of one percent per quarter, last week’s lock down must have slowed it down even further. If a mace is that valuable, why did the police wait for it to be stolen in broad daylight while 100 senators watched askance, only to go locking down cities in search of it? It was another case of locking the stables after the horses had bolted.

I am just wondering; how much lock down will we endure if a suspended minister walks into a Federal Executive Council meeting, grabs the flag behind the president and runs away with it? Or if a judge suspended by NJC enters the Supreme Court and makes away with the Chief Justice’s gavel? I saw a picture of the Inspector General sitting in his office with his cap placed on his desk. What if a suspended DPO walks in, grabs the IG’s cap and takes off with it? The police will probably lock down Lower Usuma Dam and deny water to Abuja City until the cap is found, probably at a Babalawo’s joint.

I was also wondering; what was the purpose of the lock down when Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, who facilitated the thugs’ entry, was captured there and then? To borrow from Colonel Ahmed Usman’s words, he should be held as prisoner of war. I hear that it was Senator Omo-Agege’s father who sentenced the notorious armed robber Lawrence Anini to death in 1987. The suspended senator is therefore not unfamiliar with stiff judicial sentences.