Member representing Ideato Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Ikenga Ugochinyere has maintained that decamped Rivers lawmakers are no longer members of the Assembly.
Ugochinyere in a statement at the weekend alleged that Amaewhule and his men defected thinking that President Tinubu will help them illegally remove Gov. Sim Fubara.
According to him, their plan backfired as they did not think it through because there was one man in Abuja who was desperate to capture Rivers State as if it is a private estate.
He said,“The whole thing baffles me, because what is the crux of the matter: we were here when the former speaker, Martin Amaewhule and his colleague former lawmakers, woke up one morning, even when there was no crisis in PDP, and defected and joined the APC, thinking that by joining the APC, President Bola Tinubu will help them to illegally remove Governor Siminalayi Fubara from office. It backfired. They did not think it through because there was one man in Abuja who was desperate to capture Rivers State as if it is a private estate.
“Now, you ran into APC, and you are running around looking for a court that will give you a judgement that you are still a lawmaker. It will not work. At the moment they decamped, as you are all aware, there was no crisis or division in PDP. As long as there was no division in PDP, the Constitution is very clear on it: it is automatic; your seat is vacant, you do not even need anybody to declare your seat vacant. It is on that ground that the new leadership emerged.
“So, all these struggles are to regain the State House of Assembly’s legitimacy, for the purpose of forcing the Governor out of office so that they can have unfettered access to the State resources of the people.
“Like I told you; those people are no longer lawmakers. The earlier they understand this, the better for them. And the CP needs to get this into his head: those people can not come back as lawmakers. It does not matter whether he gives them the entire police force in the State to take over the streets of Port Harcourt for them to be maiming, destroying and killing innocent law-abiding people, they cannot come back as lawmakers (without a fresh mandate). And nobody can remove Fubara from office as Governor; only the people (electorate) that elected him can remove him from office as Governor. It is as simple as that!”
