Defection: PDP asks INEC to conduct fresh election to replace 27 Rivers lawmakers

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has asked Martin Chike, speaker of the Rivers house of assembly, to declare the seats of the 27 members who joined the All Progressives Congress (APC) vacant.

On Monday, 27 PDP members in the Rivers house of assembly dumped the party for APC.

In a statement on the defection, Debo Ologunagba, PDP spokesperson, asked Chike to “immediately” declare the seats of the lawmakers vacant.

The party based its demand on section 109 (1) of the constitution which provides grounds upon which a lawmaker can lose his seat in the parliament.

The PDP also asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct a fresh election in the 27 constituencies.

“In view of the vacancy now existing in the 27 State Constituencies in Rivers State, the PDP demands that INEC should within the stipulated period under the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), conduct fresh election to fill the vacancies,” the statement reads.

“Our Party cautions that the former lawmakers should stop parading themselves as members of the Rivers State House of Assembly as such would amount to impersonation with serious criminal consequences.

“The PDP asserts that by defecting from the PDP, the political Party platform on which they were elected into the Rivers State House of Assembly, the seats of the respective 27 former lawmakers have become vacant by virtue of the provision of Section 109 (1) (g) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended).

“By reason of the above Constitutional provision and its clear interpretation by the Supreme Court, the 27 defected members of the Rivers State House of Assembly have vacated and lost their seats, rights, privileges, recognition and obligations accruable to members of the Rivers State House of Assembly.”

The legislators had attributed their defection to the “division” within the PDP — a reason recognised by the constitution.

Section 109 (1) of the constitution states that a member of a house of assembly shall vacate his seat in the house if: “(g) 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 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.”