The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) yesterday said they will ensure the five House of Representatives members who dumped their parties for All Progressives Congress (APC) lose their seats.
PDP said going by the constitutional provision the lawmaker who left its fold for APC has lost her seat because there isn’t a split with the party.
The LP, on its part, said it would ask the House leadership to declare the seats of those who left its fold for APC vacant.
Daughter of a former Delta State governor and member representing Ethiope federal constituency of Delta state in the House of Representatives, Hon. Erhriatake Ibori-Suenu defected from the PDP to the APC on the floor of the House yesterday.
Ibori-Suenu, a first term lawmaker, is the chairman, House Committee on Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
Similarly, four members of the Labour Party (LP) in the House – Tochukwu Okere (Imo), Donatus Mathew (Kaduna), Bassey Akiba (Cross River), and Iyawe Esosa (Edo) left their party for the ruling APC.
Speaker Abbas Tajudeen announced the detection of the respective lawmakers at resumed plenary and congratulated them on what he termed “right decision” taken by the members.
The decampees cited internal crisis within their party as the reason for their defection to the APC.
Reacting however, the national publicity secretary of PDP, Hon Debo Ologungaba, who said there is no crisis in PDP, noted that Ibori-Suenu has automatically lost her seat going by the provisions of the constitution.
He told LEADERSHIP that the party will abide by the provisions of the Nigerian constitution which provides that any serving lawmaker who defects to another party when there is no crisis in his or her party, automatically loses the seat.
Ologungaba said that provision of the constitution has been affirmed by a Supreme Court judgement in a similar case of defection.
He added that the provision of the constitution is self-executory and that the party would allow the process provided by the constitution to take its course.
On its part, the Labour Party said it would request the leadership of the House of Representatives to declare vacant the seats of its former members who recently defected to APC.
The opposition party also vowed to take legal action against the defecting lawmakers and announced that it had opened a register for members of the House and other elected officials who disgrace the party by switching allegiance to other political platforms.
The party’s national publicity secretary, Obiora Ifoh, in a statement, said “Though, the Labour Party leadership is undaunted by the defection, it has however, elected not to allow it slide and has therefore instructed its legal team to commence the legal actions against the defectors and to also commence the process of regaining our mandates in line with the 1999 constitution and 2022 Electoral Act as amended.
“The party will also approach the Speaker of the House of Representatives to declare vacant the seats occupied by these former Labour Party members in line with the House Rules. It is inappropriate and unacceptable for the these lawmakers to continue to function as representatives of their constituencies illegally.
“The party has also decided to open a ‘Hall of Shame’ register for these lawmakers or any lawmaker or elected officer of the party who engages in fraudulent act of defection without first dropping the mandate gotten under the ticket of the party.”
The statement added that Section 68(g) of the 1999 constitution is emphatic on when to defect and what happens when a lawmaker sponsored by a political party decides to jump ship. The Constitution states (g) being a person whose election to the House was sponsored by a political party, he becomes a member of another political party before the expiration of the period for which that House was elected;
“Provided that his membership of the latter political party is not as a result of a division in the political party of which he was previously a member or of a merger of two or more political parties or factions by one of which he was previously sponsored.”
The spokesman noted that in the 2023 general election that it achieved its highest feat under the leadership of Barrister Julius Abure having won a governorship seat, 8 Senate and 35 House of Representative seats as well as numerous state House of Assembly seats.
“The party also caused a major upset at the presidential election, one that many Nigerians still believed that Labour Party won.
“The successes achieved at that election expectedly elicited some pockets of internal pressure which have since being dealt with through internal peace mechanism and also through judicial means. Presently, while some other big parties are swimming in their own political tempest, Labour Party has since moved on having resolved all its challenges.
“It is therefore safe to say that there is absolute peace in the Labour Party. Therefore, no one elected on the ticket of the Labour Party has the constitutional protection to decamp from the party along with the party’s mandate,” he said.
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