Steer clear, perish thoughts of forcefully taking over Rivers State – PDP warns APC

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has warned the All Progressives Congress, APC, to steer clear of Rivers State, saying the party should perish thoughts of forcefully taking over the state.

This is even the as the PDP claimed that the recent statement by the APC on the ongoing political crisis in the Rivers State has further exposed its hallucinating and manipulative plots to force itself into government in the state against the will of the people.

PDP spoke in a statement by Debo Ologunagba, its National Publicity Secretary, on Saturday.

Ologunagba said APC laboured without success to subvert the Constitution on the vacation of seats by former members of the Rivers State House of Assembly who, according to him, have lost their membership of the legislative house upon defection from the party.

He said it was pathetic for the APC to think that the facts and true import of Section 109 (1) (g) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) to the effect that the former lawmakers have since lost their seats can be muddled and lost in litigations and lengthy press statements.

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Ologunagba further stated that the former House members for reasons best known to them, wittingly vacated and summarily lost their seats, insisting that nothing protects or allows them to retain their membership of the House after decamping to another political party.

According to him, the APC should come to terms with the vacation of seats by the former lawmakers.

The statement partly read: “It is indeed pathetic for the APC to think that the facts and true import of Section 109 (1) (g) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) to the effect that the former lawmakers have since lost their seats can be muddled and lost in litigations and lengthy press statements.

“For the avoidance of doubt, Section 109 (1)(g) of the Constitution is clear in providing that “a member of a House of Assembly shall vacate his seat in the House if – 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 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.”

“The former members of the Rivers State House of Assembly, for reasons best known to them, wittingly vacated and summarily lost their seats as nothing in the proviso protects or allows them to retain their membership of the Rivers State House of Assembly after decamping from the political party upon which they were elected.

“These former members of the Rivers State House of Assembly have only themselves to blame for Constitutionally vacating their seats; a course which cannot be reversed or remedied. They should admit their miscalculation and bear the inescapable consequences.

“For the umpteenth time the PDP cautions the APC to steer clear of Rivers State; it should perish the thoughts of forcefully taking over the State and stop exasperating the public space by seeking to reverse the irreversible.

“The APC should come to terms that with the vacation of seats by the former lawmakers, the quorum of the Rivers State House of Assembly will be determined by the number of the remaining lawmakers as provided by law; until a bye-election is conducted to fill the vacancies now existing in the Rivers State House of Assembly as a result of the defection by the former members.”