Lawmakers at the Ondo House of Assembly were minding their business when snakes appeared from the rooftops to send them packing.

Members of the Ondo State House of Assembly aren’t ready to return to plenary any time soon, unless the snakes that have been giving them a runaround are no more.

The legislators have been chased by snakes during parliamentary sitting--twice in one week--and they are not ready to risk it anymore.

They have seen enough.

One big snake dropped from the ceiling of the chamber on Wednesday, July 24, 2019 as the lawmakers readied themselves for the commencement of legislative business.

All the lawmakers fled for their lives as the snake danced round the hall.

The next day, Thursday 25, the ceiling above the Speaker caved in and before anyone could say “snake”, the lawmakers were on their heels and scampering out of sight.

The snake almost dropped on the head of the Speaker, sources say. 

“On Wednesday, when we were about to enter into plenary, a big snake ran out of the chamber, which disrupted our sitting, and we had to hurriedly leave the chamber.

"We were about to sit again today (Thursday) when the ceiling caved in directly where Mr Speaker was sitting; we were agitated and when we looked around, we saw the damage that termite had done to most of the wood work in the chamber”, Chairman of the House Committee on Information, Mr Gbenga Omole, told Punch newspaper. 

One source also told Punch that the Ondo State House of Assembly complex is in a state of disrepair and that reptiles have now become co-parliamentarians in the Southwest state.

According to the source, “the Speaker, Mr. Bamidele Oloyeloogun, and other lawmakers had proceedings sitting on Thursday, when the ceiling directly on top of his seat caved in and almost fell on the Speaker’s head. 

“The weak ceiling also fell on the seat of the parliamentary workers at the Assembly who sat in front of the Speaker.”

Information Committee Chairman, Omole, also announced that lawmakers will be embarking on an indefinite vacation because of the snakes and shouldn’t be expected back any time soon, until the assembly complex is renovated or given a face-lift.

“We need to intimate the state governor of this development and we have decided to meet him on this. Mr. Governor is aware of the infrastructural decay here, because many things here are outdated and not too good for legislative business.

“As of now, the House has not been given the autonomy we are agitating for, because when this happens, we won’t need to consult the governor to fix things. You know how things are being run presently; every arm of government needs to look up to the executive to get things done.

“When I said we are going on recess, we will continue to come to our offices but sitting in that chamber is what is not going to happen. We have written to Mr. Governor for him to know what is happening here,” Omole said.

While appealing to Governor Rotimi Akerodolu to fix a collapsing parliamentary edifice, Omole announced that the troublesome snake was later killed but worryingly insisted that there are more reptiles in the roof of the chamber.

He also lamented that whenever it rains, the whole chamber gets dangerously flooded.

Animals have been hell bent on having a say on how Nigeria is run in recent times.

Rats once chased President Buhari from his office after he returned from a medical vacation in London.

Snakes, vultures, gorillas and monkeys have been accused of swallowing huge sums of money from vaults of government officials at different times.

Nigeria's Chief Justice, Tanko Muhammad, recently informed lawmakers that termites ate his primary school certificate.