EDO: APC, FG intensify effort to impeach Obaseki, PDP cries out; Ize-Iyamu mocks gov

Less than six weeks to the Sept. 19 guber election in Edo, the two leading parties have engaged in hard tackles that are already paralyzing key institutions, including the state assembly, in the south-south state.

In a flurry of events in the last few days, the assembly’s Deputy Speaker Yekini  Idiaye was impeached, plans were hatched to impeach the PDP candidate and Gov Godwin Obaseki, and the APC planned to disrupt the legislative house by bringing a fake mace.

The crisis hit a fever pitch on Thursday when the APC lawmakers-elect loyal to the party’s former national chairman Adams Oshiomhole were said to be gathering for the putsch on the premises of the assembly complex under renovation for months. (Idiaye was impeached inside one of the offices the governor provided in the state secretariat.)

Truckloads of police would later descend on the complex .

While most of the triggers of this escalating tension remain allegations, the parties and their candidates are not taking things lightly.

The PDP alleged it was the federal government mobilized security operatives to take over the state House of Assembly—because its candidate Obaseki’s popularity is growing.

“Breaking News! Irked by the growing popularity of @GovernorObaseki of Edo state and overwhelming acceptance by his people, the @OfficialAPCNg led Federal Government has mobilized @PoliceNG and other security agents to take over the state house of assembly. This is totally unacceptable,” PDP tweeted on Thursday.

The party added that Oshiomhole is the hand in the glove in all this crisis.

But the APC candidate, Osagie Ize-Iyamu, taunted the PDP, asking who controls the police.

Recapping the lingering crisis that dates back to inauguration of the current assembly, Ize-Iyamu said Obaseki is the best person to account for the Thursday siege.

“Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, or the APC, does not control the Police,’ he said.

“The Edo State Government should explain to the world and Edo people what is going on. And they can start by explaining why a branch of government meant to carry out oversight functions and check the excesses of the Executive arm has been holding plenary inside the Government House for months over a supposed ‘fumigation and renovation exercise’ at the Assembly Complex’.”