By Kolawole Ojebisi
Elderstatesman, former Second Republic Senator representing Warri and convener of the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), Chief Edwin Kiagbido Clark, has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) to conduct a by-election to fill the seats of defected lawmakers in Rivers state.
Recall that in December 2023, 27 members of the Rivers State House of Assembly elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) defected from the party for the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC).
The defected lawmakers are loyalists of the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike who is also the immediate past governor of Rivers State.
The defection followed the rift between Wike and his successor, Siminalayi Fubara, the governor of Rivers.
The defection of the lawmakers has been the subject of multiple legal cases.
In an open letter addressed to Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman on Wednesday night, Clark, also a former minister of Information during the regime of Gen Yakubu Gowon as Head of State, said the defection of the lawmakers is a violation of section 109 (1)(g) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), noting that there is no crisis in the PDP.
According to section 109(1)(g), “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 any other political party before the 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”.
Clark who is also the national leader of the Ijaw noted that based on the provisions of the Constitution, the lawmakers have vacated their seats, adding that the electoral body must see the Constitution as a ground norm.
Clark said the defected lawmakers are now moving from one court to another to save their sealed fate.
“The seats of the 27 former members of the Rivers state house of assembly have been vacant for a long time, more than one year after the former holders vacated, thus depriving the people of the affected constituencies of representation in the state house of assembly,” he wrote.
“INEC under your watch is yet to carry out its statutory function of conducting a by-election to fill the seats.
“By their actions, going by Section 109 1(g), those 27 persons have automatically and immediately, without reversal, lost their seats.
“Martin Amawhule and his colleagues are still parading themselves as members of RSHA, attempting to turn the issue on its head, that they did not defect. They are shopping from one court to the other for court judgments and rulings.
“I plead with the Chairman of INEC to, without delay, conduct a by-election to fill the vacant seats and give adequate representation to the people of the affected constituencies.”
