Members of the Plateau State House of Assembly have impeached their speaker, Mr Peter Azi.
Mr Azi was impeached by the lawmakers who elected Joshua Madaki as their new Speaker during Wednesday’s plenary in Jos, the state capital.
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The impeachment followed a motion on a vote of no confidence moved by the lawmaker representing Barkin Ladi constituency, Mr Peter Gyendeng.
Other lawmakers at the session unanimously passed the motion through a voice vote, leading to the removal of the former speaker.
Similarly, the Majority Leader of the Assembly, Henry Yunkwap, was also impeached on the same grounds and replaced by Nanlong Daniel.
The newly elected speaker represents Jos East constituency while the majority leader is the lawmakers representing Mikang.
The sponsor of the motion is the lawmaker representing Barkin Ladi, one of the worst-hit local governments by the herdsmen-farmers crisis.
The killings attained one of its peaks when suspected herdsmen attacked some villages of in Gashish district of the local government, leaving at least 100 persons dead in June.
This triggered widespread condemnation of the repeated attacks by suspected herders on communities in the north-central part of the country.
Reacting, global rights group Amnesty International accused the Federal Government of complicity in the killings and claimed that no fewer than 1,813 lives have been lost to the crisis since January.
On June 27, Senate President Bukola Saraki and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, met with the President at the Aso Villa to discuss ways which the Legislature can partner with the Executive to tackle the security issues in the country.
Amid heavy criticism, President Buhari faulted the claims that his administration was doing nothing to tackling the killings.
The President who addressed the leaders of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in the northern region on Friday last week accused some politicians of fuelling the killings for their selfish interest.
“To suggest that our Administration is doing nothing is terribly unfair. We must not forget that the same Plateau State which has been crisis-ridden for years has in the past three years been celebrated for its peacefulness. The governor’s hard work for peace and the presence of the military’s Operation Safe Haven must have had some impact,” he said.
