The Peoples Democratic Party has appealed to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, to help sack the 37 members of the House who defected from the ruling party to the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC).
The PDP argued that the affected lawmakers should vacate their seats immediately having left the party that brought them to the legislature.
In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, the PDP remained silent on the issue of those who had in the past defected from other political parties to the PDP.
Before the recent jumbo defection from the PDP, the ruling party had benefited from the defection of numerous politicians and office holders from opposition parties to the PDP.
The last few weeks have witnessed a reversal of the former trend. The ruling party took a big political hit when five of its governors left it and defected to the APC. This was followed a few days ago by the decision of 37 PDP federal lawmakers to defect. A top source within a splinter group in the PDP told SaharaReporters that more defections from the ruling party were in the offing.
Mr. Metuh’s statement said that the attention of his party was drawn to "claims by 37 defecting members of the House of Representatives elected on the platform of the PDP to the APC that they obtained an injunction restraining the leadership of the National Assembly and the Party from declaring their seats vacant in line with provisions of the Constitution.” He added: “We have, after a careful review, discovered that this claim is false. For the avoidance of doubt, the order of the Court clearly says that ‘status quo’ be maintained which means the affected members shall remain members of the PDP.
"The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in section 68 (i) (g) clearly spells out the consequences of cross carpeting when there is no division in any Party. We wish to re-emphasize here that the courts have pronounced, and INEC has concurred that there are no factions in the PDP.
"Since the affected members have renounced their membership of the PDP, we call on the Presiding Officer in the House of Representatives to declare the 37 seats vacant without any further delay. This action shall be in adherence to our grand norm, which is the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended)."
No comments:
Post a Comment