Some armed men suspected to be thugs on Thursday invaded the Sagbama Local Government Legislative Council in Bayelsa State and attacked the councillors during official sitting.
Daily Trust gathered that the lawmakers allegedly planned to impeach the Council Chairman, Embeleakpo Alale, at the sitting when the thugs invaded the Chambers.
The hoodlums were said to have brandished cutlasses, locally made guns and other weapons, injuring some persons during the incident, while others around the council secretariat scampered for safety, a situation that brought the sitting to an abrupt end.
Daily Trust further learnt that the attack was not unconnected with the invitation of the principal staff of the council by the councillors as part of their oversight functions.
Governor Douye Diri’s predecessor and senator representing Bayelsa West in the National Assembly, Mr Seriake Dickson, hails from the area.
Leader of the council’s legislative arm, Mr Ebikake Dickson, confirmed the incident and claimed that the attackers were loyal to the chairman of the local government.
According to him, the invaders swooped on them during the sitting and disrupted their session with impunity.
He said: “Last Tuesday, I called for sitting. In our sitting, we resolved to invite some principal officers of the council to submit their comprehensive documents for us to do our oversight functions.
“But Wednesday, when we got to the council secretariat, we saw some strange faces. We wondered who invited them to the secretariat. We also saw the Chief Security Officer to the Chairman giving instructions to the hooligans.
“We overheard some of them saying they were acting on instructions and that they would deal with anybody that misbehaved. Some of them went to where the Ward 5 councillor parked her car and ordered the driver to leave. In the process, they attacked and injured the driver.
“When we saw that the problem was getting out of hand, we called the president of the youth of Sagbama to come to our rescue. When they came, the Chief Security Officer to the chairman blocked the council gate. The youths engaged in a scuffle with them and some youths were injured.
“It was the intervention of the youths and the police from area command that saved their lives.
“Our lives are in danger. From now till the end of our tenure, if anything happens to any of us, the public should know where to beam their searchlight on,” Dickson stated.
However, the chairman of the council, Alale, in a statement by his Press Secretary, Dr Nikade Anderson, said the attack was carried out by unidentified hoodlums.
He said preliminary investigations are ongoing to ascertain the immediate and remote causes of the security breach in the council.
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