A few weeks after THE CONCLAVE reported about the excessive interference by legislators in the deployment and redeployment of staff members by National Assembly management, an ugly scenario that verged on the same issue played out on Wednesday, this time round with “dramatic embarrassment” of the Sergeant-at-Arm by a senator.
The unpleasant scenario, a witness told THE CONCLAVE, happened in the morning of Wednesday, May 28, 2025, when Sen. Mohammed Mungonu, barged into the office of the Sergeant-at-Arm, General Ekpo [retd] to complain about his redeployed staff member.
Mungonu reportedly shouted and banged the table on the Sergeant at Arms, Gen. Ekpo as he challenged his [Ekpo’s] decision to redeploy someone who was running errands for him.
According to a source who witnessed the Senator’s “shameful” display of arrogance and excessive boast, “the sergeant-at-arm was having a meeting with his two lieutenants, when Senator Mungonu stormed in shouting: who do you think you are that you’ll post someone who runs errands for me?”
The witness said that Gen Ekpo remained calm and quiet as the Senator ranted, asking him politely, sergeant at arm, boss, politely: “Sir, is the personnel your personal staff or that of the national assembly?”
The senator further blew his top and rudely banged the table, shouting at the sergeant-at-arm: “That is irrelevant. He is my staff, who runs my errands. Who are you to do otherwise?”
Senator Mungonu smashed the Senate sacred rules book on the table, challenging the sergeant-at-arm, to go and inquire about him.
He boasted that he had been in the national assembly for twenty years, left the House of Representatives as chief whip, and that he was the chief whip of the Senate, and that whatever he wanted, he got.
“I manage the chamber of the Senate. No one can stop me from getting whatever I want,” he boasted.
In addition, he pointed out that he was the State Attorney General, who retired after thirty years of service, and “So, who are you to stop what I want?”
Not done, he said: “If you think because you’re a kinsman of the Senate President, it will not work. You can’t come here and behave anyhow.”
In the midst of the drama, the two lieutenants of the sergeant at arm were pleading with the senator to calm down and control his tempers.
He continued to rant and shout until he was satisfied and decided to walk out of the sergeant-at-arm’s office.
THE CONCLAVE gathered that Gen. Expo, as a retired general, is of the view that no staff member of the department should stay for too long in a duty post.
The overarching argument is that allowing a staff member to stay for a long time in a duty post potentially creates redundancy and complacency with some staff members building pseudo empires.
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