Posted by Reuters on
Nigerian police have taken over Bayelsa state government house and surrounded the governor, who is fighting an attempt to impeach him over alleged money-laundering, the governor's spokesman said on Friday.
YENAGOA, Nigeria (Reuters) - Nigerian police have taken over Bayelsa state government house and surrounded the governor, who is fighting an attempt to impeach him over alleged money-laundering, the governor's spokesman said on Friday.
Police and troops also cordoned off the state house of assembly, a Reuters witness said, as rumours circulated in the state capital Yenagoa that an impeachment vote was imminent.
"Two truckloads of mobile police have taken over the government house. The governor is inside," spokesman Preye Wariowei said by telephone.
The federal government deployed hundreds of troops in Bayelsa, an oil-producing state in the southern Niger Delta, two weeks ago following the return of Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, who fled money-laundering charges in Britain.
It also cut off the state's access to monthly allocations of oil income and closed down the radio station.
Some Bayelsa legislators, backed by the federal government, are trying to impeach Alamieyeseigha to strip him of immunity from prosecution which state governors enjoy in Nigeria.
Just after the governor jumped bail in London and reappeared in Bayelsa, 20 members of the state assembly signed an impeachment notice accusing him of embezzling public funds, holding illegal foreign bank accounts, lying about his wealth and corruptly enriching his family.
But some of those signatories later said in a sworn statement they were bribed and mistreated by federal law enforcement agents to sign, and withdrew their support for impeachment.
Only 15 lawmakers voted in favour of investigating the charges, one short of the two-thirds majority required by the constitution to pass that motion.
A two thirds majority of the 24-strong assembly is also required to impeach the governor, a former air force officer, who has argued that the vote was unconstitutional.
The governor has said he is being persecuted for fighting for the rights of the ethnic Ijaw, who are dominant in the oil-producing delta, but a minority in Nigeria.
Bayelsa pumps one quarter of Nigeria's 2.4 million barrels per day output.
The Ijaw have been campaigning for greater control of the region's oil resources and Alamieyeseigha is a self-styled champion of that cause -- although many Ijaw have disowned him since he fled British justice.