Here’s why police seized House of Assembly

At about 2am on Monday, May 14, 2018, truckloads of police officers and personnel of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) surrounded the Kano House of Assembly and

When lawmakers resumed work hours later, they were politely told to head back home.

Reports say the police officers and NSCDC operatives arrived the House of Assembly in 10 trucks before proceeding to seal off all entry points.

What exactly happened?

Pulse has been told that a host of lawmakers in the Kano parliament are not happy with Speaker of the House, Yusuf Abdullahi Ata and want him impeached.

Ata has been accused of incompetence and failure to carry everyone along.

Ata has also been accused of a failure to pursue the interests of lawmakers.

He narrowly escaped impeachment a few months ago.

21 legislators have signed the current Ata impeachment form. That means only six other signatures are now required to remove the Speaker.

All other principal officers of the House have been voted out as well.

Speaker knows he'll be impeached

ChannelsTV reports that the Speaker has accepted his fate and knows he is only days away from being impeached.

However, a defiant Ata told the press that only God can unseat him.

"In anything in life, there is starting point and the end. If Allah has designed it that my time is off, nobody will extend it by a second. And if it is not time, nobody can remove me from office, that is my belief.

"My happiness is that I didn’t steal anybody's money. So, if today, they remove me from office, I will leave. I have a constituency that I am representing. But nobody will accuse me of stealing", the Speaker said.

Police spokesperson in Kano, SP Magaji Musa Majia confirmed the development to the press.

According to Majia, the deployment of the police personnel to the Assembly was necessary to maintain peace in the complex.

He said, “We deployed our men to the Assembly to ensure that nobody disrupts the peace.

“We need peace in the State and therefore we will not allow anybody to tamper with existing peace and harmony being enjoyed by the people in the State.”

Violence is not uncommon in parliaments across Nigeria. Stealing of maces, exchange of punches and deploying chairs as a weapon of destruction, have been a common feature of the legislative arm of government since the nation’s independence.