Plateau Speaker, 10 Others Arrested

The crisis rocking the Plateau State House of Assembly deepened on Monday following the arrest of the embattled Speaker, Abok Ayuba, alongside 10 members of his group.

Reports say they were arrested within the vicinity of the State Assembly in Jos.

Their arrest was led by the State Police Commissioner, Edward Egbuka and some key officials of the different security outfits in the State.

They were ushered into the waiting Hilux vans at about 3.15 pm after laying siege to the State Assembly for over eight hours, according to reports from Plateau State.

His supporters who had earlier converged and were protesting peacefully were teargassed as they made unsuccessful attempts to prevent his arrest.

Many sympathisers joined the protesting youths, swelling the crowd and prompting the police to repel them with gunshots and teargas.
The police later whisked the speaker away along with his other colleagues.

Journalists covering the incident also suffered several degree of injuries as they scampered for cover following sporadic gunshots.

While the House members claimed ignorant of their arrest, THE WHISTLER was told they were being taken to Abuja on the order of the Governor, Solomon Lalong.

Inside the Hilux vehicle the speaker kept shouting, “I can not say if I am under arrest at this moment.”

Trouble started in the day when a rival group of protesters sympathetic to Yakubu Sanda scaled the fence into the premises of the assembly during a meeting being led by the speaker.

The group sympathetic to the speaker joined later, leading to police releasing many gunshots to scare them away.

The protesters said they did not know that the police were laying siege to the assembly in order to arrest the speaker.

They fingered the governor whom they accused of trying to plant a weak member as speaker to do his bidding.

Mr Abok was last week removed by six out of 24 House members and has refused to accept his impeachment.