The political crisis in Edo State took a new twist yesterday as the APC members of the state’s House of Assembly played a fast one on the members of the PDP. The speaker Uyi Igbe-led house comprising only members of the APC yesterday morning took the legislative sitting of the house to the old legislative quarters located right inside the premises of the state’s Government House.

A short notice was earlier pasted on the gate of the Anthony Enahoro Complex of the house of assembly located at the Ring Road of Benin City informing that due to renovation works currently going on at the complex, plenary would for now be holding at the old legislative chambers located at the GRA of the city.

When News Express got to gate of the state's government house through which access could be got to the old legislative house, stern policemen and plain clothes security men denied access to a number of journalists from entry.

Particularly incensed by the security men's refusal to grant entry to the sitting was Efosa Uwangue a house of assembly correspondent of the state's private broadcast media ITV. Someone outside the gate said there was a specific order from above that ITV (seen as a station that reports more from the PDP angle) should not be allowed through the gates.

As news filtered out that the sitting had been held and that Deputy Speaker Festus Ebea of the PDP had been impeached for gross misconduct and replaced by Victor Edoror, there were a number of guesses as to the immediate reaction of the PDP and what future course they might take to respond to the APC members latest move.

Speaking to newsmen yesterday in the immediate aftermath of the announcement of his impeachment,

Festus Ebea described his purported impeachment as a ‘joke of the century’, and described the APC's lawmakers as having lost their sense of dignity.

The minority whip of the house, Kingsley Ehigiamusoe (PDP) argued that the sitting of the house yesterday was null and void since ‘there was no resolution of the house that the plenary session should be moved to Government House.’

A journalist who craved anonymity opined that he expects the PDP’s members to start their own parallel sittings elsewhere, a move which would further throw the state into confusion.

There are also rumors that a worse case scenario would see the PDP members forming a quorum to impeach Governor Adams Oshiomhole over his alleged support for the APC’s lawmakers and interference in the legislative affairs of the state. The argument in support of this rumor is that the PDP’s ‘federal might’ would come into play as the federal government could choose to recognize the PDP's lawmakers faction as the genuine legislative body in the state.

The Edo House of Assembly had not been able to sit at the Anthony Enahoro complex for weeks as the four PDP lawmakers purportedly suspended over misconduct charges had insisted on gaining entry into the chambers despite a court order barring them from doing so.

•Photo shows ‘impeached’ Deputy Speaker Ebea (right) with a colleague outside the gate of the Edo State House of Assembly Complex during one of the failed sittings of the House last week.

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