Fix: statements with side-effects in assert statements

Background
==========
When building with the NDEBUG definition the `assert()` statements are
removed.

Issue
=====
Currently, a few `assert()` statements in the code base contain
statements that have side effects and removing them changes the
behavior for the program.

Fix
===
Extract the statements with side effects out of the `assert()`
statements.

Signed-off-by: Francis Deslauriers <francis.deslauriers@efficios.com>
Signed-off-by: Jérémie Galarneau <jeremie.galarneau@efficios.com>
Change-Id: I0b11c8e25c3380563332b4c0fad15f70b09a7335