Following the crisis that disrupted the sitting of the Rivers State House of Assembly on Tuesday, the House of Representatives have passed a motion directing the National Assembly to take over the functions of the state legislature.
The House also passed a motion to direct the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar to redeploy the Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Joseph Mbu for ‘dereliction of duties.’
The sitting of the Rivers State House of Assembly was disrupted on Tuesday morning when hoodlums and some members attacked the principal officers of the house, with an assortment of weapons.
The house which adjourned sine die for some weeks now, in the wake of the political crisis between Governor Chibuike Amaechi and President Goodluck Jonathan’s pointsmen in the state, re-opened this morning at about 9.45 a.m.
Proceedings have barely started when some members, said to belong to the G5 minority group, arrived with some hoodlums and started beating up the majority leader of the house, Chidi Lloyd with sticks, microphone and camera stands and any object that could serve as cudgels.
The Speaker of the house, Otelemaba Amachree was similarly attacked and the mace broken.
When Governor Amaechi heard of the fracas and the refusal of the police and members of the JTF to intervene, he reportedly rushed to the house with his aides and armed escorts and succeeded in rescuing members of the house loyal to him.
As the governor and majority of the legislators were leaving the site of the mayhem, they discovered that five renegade members of the house had seized the mace. They then ran back to retrieve the mace from the minority group.
