BREAKING NEWS: 8 APC lawmakers reportedly take over Benue Assembly, serve Governor Ortom impeachment notice

Tahav Agerzua, a spokesperson for Governor Ortom told Premium Times at 10 am on Monday, July 30 that the eight lawmakers have also taken over the premises of the state parliament with the alleged support of the police. “They have taken over the House of Assembly and served the governor an impeachment notice despite a court order forbidding them from doing so,” Agerzua said. 

we also gathered that Agerzua claimed that George Akume, a former governor and an APC senator from Benue state, was the one who brought police officers from Abuja to attempt to use eight lawmakers to impeach a governor in a House of 30 lawmakers. The crisis comes a few days after Governor Ortom defected from the APC to the PDP. It also came days after 23 PDP lawmakers impeached the House speaker, Terkimbi Ikyange, on allegations that he was not carrying other members along in legislative activities. Ikyange, who remained in the APC despite recent mass defection of his colleagues to the PDP, was said to have been impeached because he was no longer in the majority party. Some of the majority House members who impeached the speaker, however, insisted it had nothing to do with his status as a minority lawmaker. 

Last week, PDP lawmakers reportedly said they were compelled to use the Government House in Makurdi to conduct legislative businesses after security agencies locked the parliament. Meanwhile, Vanguard in its own version of the report, said that youths from Benue state have, in the early hours of Monday, July 30 as at 5:am, trooped en masse to block the Benue Assembly complex over what they claimed was plots by some politicians loyal to the APC-led federal government to impeach Governor Ortom. 

It was previously reported that Governor Ortom disclosed that he defected from the APC in rejection of a political party which treats the killing of his people with kid gloves. He made the comment during a thanksgiving service in his honour which took place at St Michael’s Catholic Rectory, Ameladu. Ortom stated that the federal government is persecuting him over his refusal to give state land to herdsmen.