The crisis rocking Edo state House of Assembly appears unabated yesterday following a contempt charge on the suspended deputy speaker of
the state Assembly, Hon. Festus Ebea.
Ebea of the All Progressive Congress (APC) and three other lawmakers who recently dumped the APC for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were suspended by the parliament over alleged misconduct.
The legislators had described their suspension as “illegal” and
afterwards conveyed a plenary with five other PDP legislators; during which they announced the suspension of speaker Uyi Igbe and elected Ebea as the ‘new speaker.’
Uyi Igbe last week obtained an interim order barring the suspended lawmakers from the Assembly, an order the PDP said was not binding and vowed that the lawmaker would continue to attend plenary.
To this end, there was tension ahead of yesterday’s plenary at the
Assembly as hundreds of armed policemen were drafted to the Anthony Enahoro complex to forestall breakdown of law and order.
The warring faction (including speaker Igbe and the suspended legislators) who arrived the Assembly at about 7.am were all frisk by security operatives before gaining entrance.
The lawmakers afterwards went into the chamber and were seen discussing in clusters- a move that initially suggested they were out to resolve the crisis.
A mild drama however ensued after the deliberation that lasted over eight hours when a court bailiff arrived in the Assembly premises to served deputy speaker Ebea a contempt charge.