Schools Shut, Workers Return Home As Fayose lays Siege on Assembly Complex To Stop His Impeachment

There was panic again in Ado Ekiti on Monday as members of the Peoples Democratic Party and supporters of Governor Ayodele Fayose laid siege   to the Ekiti State House of Assembly complex in order to halt the resumption of the 19 All Progressives Congress lawmakers.


Fayose had announced in a statewide broadcast on Sunday that the   lawmakers planned to take over the assembly to commence their impeachment proceedings against him.

He therefore urged transport unions, market women and workers to rise up and protect the mandate they gave him.

Although there were no barricades at entry points to Ado Ekiti city as done in the previous protests, many   workers who arrived in their offices at 8am returned to their homes out of fear.

Private and public schools in the state capital failed to reopen for the third term academic session as a result of the development.

The governor’s supporters and the state PDP members who were allegedly mobilised by the caretaker chairmen of the 16 Local Government Areas in the state clustered around the assembly complex, watching out for the APC lawmakers.

Security agencies were also seen at the entry points frisking vehicles and passersby.

While the Fayose supporters waited and discussed in clusters, the 25 newly elected PDP House of Assembly lawmakers   issued a statement in which they   alleged that the personal ambitions of the Speaker, Adewale Omirin, and a   Senator, Babafemi Ojudu, were responsible for the aggravation of the political crisis in the state.

They called on the state stakeholders, especially traditional rulers, to prevail on the two lawmakers not to throw the state into chaos because of “their ambition to be acting governor and governor.’’

“Whoever that is interested in the Ekiti State Governorship position should wait till 2018,” the lawmakers-elect said in the statement by Gboyega Aribisogan, Segun Adewumi and Adeniran Alagbada.

But the Special Adviser on Media to Omirin, Wole Olujobi,   denied that his boss   aimed to become the acting governor of the state.

He also said that it could not have been true that Ojudu collected money from anyone to ensure the impeachment of Fayose in 2006.

“He (Omirin) is the Speaker of the   Assembly who must check the governor’s excesses in his flagrant trampling on the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” Olujobi stated.