– Says, Their Seats Are Constitutionally Vacant
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has taken a swipe at the All Progressive Congress APC over its press statement, where it made desperate unsuccessful attempt to justify the stance of the defected lawmakers who it said have constitutionally lost their seats.
The PDP, in a release dated May, 11, 2024, said “the hallucinatory and manipulative plots of the APC to force it’s self into government in Rivers State, is an effort in futility because what is currently at stake is a constitutionally issue that cannot be easily manipulated or swept under the carpet.
“Hence, all the behind the scene plots and manipulations are a mirage that is dead on arrival”.
The release which was signed by Hon Debo Ologunagba and made available to the press reads, “It is indeed pathetic for the APC to think that the facts and true import of Section 109 (1) (g) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) to the effect that the former lawmakers have since lost their seats can be muddled and lost in litigations and lengthy press statements.
Interestingly, in the failed bid to subvert the Constitution to give the former members of the Rivers State House of Assembly a lifeline, the APC ended up admitting the clarity of the proviso of Section 109(1)(g) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) in voiding their seats upon their defection.
For the avoidance of doubt, Section 109 (1)(g) of the Constitution is clear in providing that “a member of a House of Assembly shall vacate his seat in the House if – being a person whose election to the House of Assembly was sponsored by a political party, he becomes a member of another political party before 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 former members of the Rivers State House of Assembly, for reasons best known to them, wittingly vacated and summarily lost their seats as nothing in the proviso protects or allows them to retain their membership of the Rivers State House of Assembly after decamping from the political party upon which they were elected.
These former members of the Rivers State House of Assembly have only themselves to blame for constitutionally vacating their seats; a course which cannot be reversed or remedied. They should admit their miscalculation and bear the inescapable consequences.
This is especially so as the Supreme Court, in the case of Abegunde vs Ondo State House of Assembly and Others, has since clarified and affirmed the import of the proviso in Section 109(1)(g) in validating the automatic vacation of a seat by a member of a Legislative House who defected from the Party upon which he was elected into that House.
For the umpteenth time the PDP cautions the APC to steer clear of Rivers State; it should perish the thoughts of forcefully taking over the State and stop exasperating the public space by seeking to reverse the irreversible.
The APC should come to terms that with the vacation of seats by the former lawmakers, the quorum of the Rivers State House of Assembly will be determined by the number of the remaining lawmakers as provided by law; until a bye-election is conducted to fill the vacancies now existing in the Rivers State House of Assembly as a result of the defection by the former members”.
