Impeachment: Tension heightens in Ekiti as police lay siege to Assembly

Tension heightened in Ado Ekiti on Monday as police cordoned off the state House of Assembly complex.

This followed unsubstantiated news that the 19 All Progressives Congress lawmakers were planning to sit to commence impeachment against Governor Ayo Fayose.

As early as 8am, armed policemen had taken over all the entries to the Assembly, thereby making it difficult for even workers at the state secretariat to gain entrance.

Those without concrete assignments were turned back.

The Assembly is located in the same axis with the state secretariat..

Several patrol vans were stationed at every junction to the House, while an Armoured Personnel Carrier was stationed in front of the Assembly with several riot policemen on ground, apparently to prevent any breakdown of law and order.

Also, members of the Peoples Democratic Party and commercial motorcyclists were mobilised to the roads barricaded to prevent easy human and vehicular access to the Assembly.

The PDP members and the motorcylists were still at the venue as at 4pm when the story was filed.

Addressing journalists on the development, Governor Fayose condemned the action of the APC lawmakers, saying there was no reason for the tension since all their entitlements had been paid.

But the ousted Speaker, Dr. Adewale Omirin, denied the governor’s claim.

Omirin said they were yet to get alerts from the banks.

Fayose also displayed copies of the Skye Bank cheques dated May 26, 2015 issued to the lawmakers to corroborate his claim.

One of the cheques, which bore the name of Boluwade Bolie Kehinde, was received on behalf of the lawmaker and had a sum of N2,149,052.37 on it.

Fayose said it would be tantamount to illegality for Omirin to continue with any impeachment proceeding against him in view of the ruling delivered by Justice E. S. Chukwu of the Federal High Court, which ordered that status quo as at April 23 be maintained pending the determination of the motion on notice.