Former National Publicity Secretary of the People’s Democratic Party, Kola Ologbondiya has again stated that Martin Amaewhule and others who defected from the PDP to the APC are no longer members of the state Assembly.
Ologbondiya while reacting to the crisis rocking the assembly said once the speaker announces the defection of a lawmaker he seizes to be a member of the House.
According to him, the constitution is clear on the matter that once you leave your party except on the grounds of merger, or division, that you have lost your seat.
He said, “Concerning the 27 factional lawmakers in Rivers state. Let me sound a reminder, in the senate under David Mark, Senator Bukola Saraki who later became the Senate President., Magnus Abe, Senator Goje and about eight others wrote a letter to the Senate President, David Mark and said they were decamping from the PDP to the APC, Mark called them in as brothers and said to them. “You know that if you do this and I read it on the floor, you have lost your seats” and on account of that he refused to read the letter on the floor. Even when he wasn’t available and the Deputy Senate President, then Ekweremmadu was presiding and they tried to prevail on him, they made the same point.
“The man who left the House of Representatives lost his seat. So, there’s no contest in the matter. The constitution in section 109 (g) is clear,
“If you leave your party except on the grounds of merger, except on the grounds of division, that section is self-explanatory, you’ve lost your seat” The presiding officer will write to INEC. In the case of people arguing that they haven’t completed the process, there’s no provision in the constitution that talks about that process.
“The constitution says if you cross, if you cross from point A to point B. I just wonder why we’re now fooling around with our judicial system and court giving all manner of orders. I believe and I say it with all sense of responsibility that even if those members acted in error, integrity demands that they live by their errors. All these efforts to ambush the judiciary can take us to nowhere.”
