Thousands of protesters loyal to the embattled governor of Nasarawa State, Tanko Al-Makura early Wednesday morning took over the Abuja-Keffi highway threatening to shut down the state in the event of his impeachment.<\/p>\n
20 members of the 24-house Assembly on Monday served the governor with a notice of impeachment, the same day President Goodluck Jonathan was in the state to commission a rice mill.<\/p>\n
The placard-wielding protesters caused a traffic gridlock on the expressway, the gateway between Abuja and nine northern states.<\/p>\n
Most of the vehicles bore leaves in apparent show of solidarity with the protest. The police and civil defence personnel had a tough time containing the street urchins and boys from the nearby markets who cashed in on the protest.<\/p>\n
The protesters were led by Hon Abdullahi Sani, Speaker of Karu Local Government Area.<\/p>\n
Some of the placards bore messages as “Leave Al-Makura alone,” “TA-AL 4 + 4”, “We don’t want crisis in Nasarawa,” “Al-Makura is performing,” among others.<\/p>\n
Sani told Pointblanknews.com that the people of the state were unhappy with the lawmakers and advised them to withdraw the notice.<\/p>\n
He said the timing of the notice indicated it was an agenda of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to frustrate Al-Makura and take over the state.<\/p>\n
Governor Al-Makura is of All Progressives’ Congress. PDP has 20 legislators in the House.<\/p>\n
Sani further told Pointblanknews.com that the protests were simultaneous in all the major towns in the state, and appealed to the state lawmakers to re-think the impeachment plot.<\/p>\n
He described the protest as the first stage of the rejection of the impeachment plot, and warned of more disastrous consequences should the lawmakers make good their threat to unseat the governor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thousands of protesters loyal to the embattled governor of Nasarawa State, Tanko Al-Makura early Wednesday morning took over the Abuja-Keffi highway threatening to shut down the state in the event…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n