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From Tony John, Port Harcourt, Idu Jude Abuja and Chukwuma Umeorah
The unfolding political drama in Rivers State is getting messier as the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP) has called on the 27 lawmakers of the Rivers State House of Assembly to immediately vacate their seats.
This is as the people of Etche State Constituency II in Etche Local Government Area have declared the seat of their defecting lawmaker, Chimezie Nwankwo, vacant.
The angry constituents also challenged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to commence the process of conducting a fresh election for the seat.
The CNPP said it was both immoral and illegal for a lawmaker elected on one political party platform to defect to another and still retain his or her legislative seat.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lawmakers who are loyalists of Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Nyesom Wike, said they defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) due to the rift in the party.
Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his predecessor, Nyeesom Wike have been at loggerheads. The 27 lawmakers are loyalists of the former governor.
The CNPP, in a statement signed by its Deputy National Publicity Secretary, James Ezema, yesterday, urged the defecting legislators to immediately vacate their seats.
The angry constituents also asked INEC to commence the process of conducting a fresh election for the seat.
One of the traditional leaders in Igboh Kingdom, Kemakolom Nwanuo, said the decision to recall the member representing them followed his defection to APC, which was not the platform on which he was voted in.
Nwanuo, Ogunba I of Igboh Kingdom, said his stand with the governor and cautioned against distraction that could lead to lack of concentration on governance.
On his part, leader of Etche Solidarity Movement (ESM), Samuel Nwala, said they were in support of the position of national leadership of the PDP that the seat of the 27 members be declared vacant.
Nwala revealed that the recall process of Nwankwo would commence fully after a week, if he failed to do the needful by going back to the party on which platform the people voted him.
Meanwhile, the Chancellor, International Society for Social Justice and Human Rights, Omenazu Jackson, has described the defection as an act of lawlessness.
Jackson said by constitutional provisions of the 1999 Constitution, the defectors have ceased to be parliamentarians.
He said: “The moral position of the constitution dictates that the people have been fooled, hence, there is need to seek fresh mandate to determine their acceptance based on their new found manifesto.”
According to him, the previous manifesto has been invalidated based on contract of offer and acceptance.
“The party has a mutual/constitutional contract with the people based on their manifesto. It is criminal to still remain under such a previous mandate with a different manifesto. It is a criminal breach of trust to do so.”
The group’s chancellor said the Federal Government under APC-controlled leadership should not, in any way, encourage lawlessness and should not be a beneficiary of crime and criminal boldness of some Nigerians.
“Having a society where there is rule of law will be more beneficial to all. It is dangerous for the public to have an impression that APC members are above the law.
“Crooked political behaviour will lead to anarchy if the so-called political actors are not mindful of their behaviours and conduct.
“The Nigerian populace are not naive nor did we all escape from a psychiatrist hospital untreated, so as not to understand our environment and what we want.
“These ‘above the law mentality’ should stop forthwith. No citizen is a half citizen and we all have equal rights. The few who are temporarily privileged should not in any way take others as fools.”
•Court recognises Ehie as Speaker
Meanwhile, the camp of Governor Fubara has won a temporary victory following the order of a Rivers State High Court in Port Harcourt that gave recognition to Edison Ehie as speaker of the Assembly.
Justice M.W Danagogo gave the order in an exparte motion, suit no. PHC/3030/CS/2023 in which the Assembly is the first claimant and Ehie, second claimant; and Amaewhule, as first defendant while Dumle Maol, is the second defendant.
Ehie wants the court to order Amaewhule and others to stop entering the state House of Assembly complex until the burnt hallowed chamber is fully renovated by the government.
He also wants the court to order that he lawfully takes over the speakership of the state assembly until the matter before its dispensed, praying that Amaewhule should be stopped from conducting himself as the Speaker of the House.
The order threatened that the second claimant, Edison, would pay the sum of N50,000,000 as damages if the application before the court turned out to be frivolous.
The court also ordered the claimants to serve the interim order, the motion on notice already filed, the originating process and other processes in this suit on the defendants on or before December 13, 2023.
The court granted leave to the claimants to serve all the processes by substituted means by publication in two national newspapers or by posting at a conspicuous part of the last known address of the defendants and adjourned till December 21 for motion on notice.
• Lawmaker defends defection
But the Chairman of the Rivers State House Committee on Public Petition and member representing Asari-Toru Constituency 2, Enemi George, has defended the defection insisting there is a strong division and internal crises within the PDP.
“The reasons we have given are very clear. There is a strong division in our party. The secretariat of our party is dysfunctional, and we do not even know who the secretary of the PDP at the national level is. When efforts to establish correspondence with the secretariat proved futile, it left us with no choice.
“We had been in the eye of the storm in the past few weeks. The hallowed chambers of the Rivers State House of Assembly was burnt down, the official residence of the speaker was attacked by thugs, the lives of members have been threatened individually and collectively, but as I speak, nobody from the PDP at the national level has reached out to know the real state of things and to ask if we were safe. They never showed any form of concern. These are some of the reasons for our defection. We had no choice but to move to a party where we would be protected and where we would add value.”
•Ubani, Kalu react
But former chairman, Section of Public Interest and Development Law, NBA-SPIDEL, Monday Ubani, cited Section 109 (1) of the 1999 Constitution, and said: “It is a factual situation. If you wish to defect, in accordance with the provisions of the constitution, it says that you must show the reason. And the only reason the constitution permits it is that there must be a crisis within your party. However, the term crisis was not well defined in that section of the constitution, so, it is left for the court to examine and decide if truly there was a crisis in the PDP that prompted the decamping and if the 27 lawmakers should vacate their seats.”
He said for one to regard a situation within a political party that authorises an individual member to leave that party, then it has to be affecting the party as an entity and not just an individual.
Ubani added that the conditions qualifying the term ‘crisis’ not being well stated has made many politicians take undue advantage of moving from one party to another while in public office without any severe consequence.
He, however, urged the judiciary to remain neutral in adjudicating issues like this.
Corroborating his thoughts in a separate interview on Arise Morning Show, legal practitioner, Kalu Kalu, said by virtue of interpretation of the law, the seats have automatically become vacant.
“All INEC needs to do now is to commence the process of conducting bye-elections into those affected 27 state constituencies in Rivers State.”
He said as for the caveat in the constitution that permits the decamping of a lawmaker on grounds of division in his party, the PDP had made it clear there was no division in the party.
“PDP came out with a position that they are united, and they were also against the issues between Wike and Fubara and the violence in Rivers State. Since then, there have been no conflicting opinions from another group in PDP saying what Debo (Ologunagba) said is not the position of PDP. Also, there is only one faction of PDP in the state. This means the lawmakers acted on their own accord and they ‘must vacate the seat,” he said.
