Less than 24 hours after the Deputy Speaker of the Edo State House of Assembly was impeached, a detachment of Policemen on Thursday surrounded the House of Assembly complex in Benin City, the state capital.
Yekini Idiaye was impeached by legislators on Wednesday and was replaced by Mr. Roland Asoro, who represents Orhionmwon-South constituency. Asoro was also sworn in immediately as the new Deputy Speaker.
There were reports that the Police presence was to prevent a breakdown of law and order at Assembly Complex.
While Idiaye was accused of gross misconduct as the reason for his impeachment, there were allegations that he was impeached for his support for Osaze Ize-Iyamu, the candidate for the All Progressives Congress in the September 19 governorship election.
The Assembly members have been divided along party lines.p Those loyal to governor Godwin Obaseki are said to have been sitting in the Government House, citing the fumigation of the Assembly Complex.
However, the Speaker, in an address aired via social media shortly after the impeachment of Idiaye, called on the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to call members of his party to order.
The speaker said, “We have it on good authority, the dubious plans by the governor of Imo State, Senator Hope Uzodinma, and the stakeholders of APC in Edo State to import a fake maze to take over the Edo State House of Assembly working in cohort with the former deputy speaker who recently declared his support for the governorship candidate of APC to congregate in a separate location to illegally and violently take over the Edo State House of Assembly as brought to our notice.
“And so, we call on the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari and the presidency to urgently call this governor and others working with him to execute this illegal plan to desist and allow the laws of the state to guide them.
“The state polity is already heated up by the political tension from the various electioneering campaign. Their planned action is likened to lightening a match in an already tensed political environment which conflagration is capable of causing crisis in the state and may scale beyond imagination.
“We call on Edo State people, whose mandate and interest the state legislature holds and protect, to rise against this attack and plot to subvert their will and subjugate them using external forces.
“We urge lovers of democracy across the world and institutions that uphold democracy and value, as well as pro-democracy groups to denounce this planned illegality that seems to distract a duly constituted authority.
“We recognize the constitutional rights of the three members of the Assembly to support the candidate of their choice but that should not distract them from coming to work to carry out the job for which they were elected and become an agent of mutiny against their own primary constituencies.
“We are as always committed to protecting the democratic rights of our people as the legislature remains the sacred institution in the democratisation process signed by my honourable self on behalf of the Edo State House of Assembly.
