A group of men stormed into the Nigerian parliament‘s upper house and took the symbolic mace.

The large ornamental staff that represents the legislature’s authority is crucial to proceedings as senate decisions cannot be approved without it.

Amid uproar in the room the men were filmed running out of the chambers with the mace held aloft, as members of the assembly look on.

A spare mace nonetheless meant that sessions were able to continue, before the stolen mace was found under a flyover in the capital Abuja.