The All Progressives Congress (APC) has been advised by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to avoid entering Rivers State, as the party should abandon any plans to annex the state by force.
Even yet, the PDP asserted that the APC’s recent remarks regarding the current political unrest in Rivers State have further shown its delusional and cunning schemes to usurp power in the state against the wishes of the populace.
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Debo Ologunagba, the National The field of publicity Secretary for the PDP, released the following statement on Saturday.
According to Ologunagba, the APC tried unsuccessfully to amend the Constitution during the former members of the Rivers State House of Representatives’ term of office assembly, who he claims had been expelled from the legislative body after leaving the party.
He called it pitiful for the APC to believe that long press releases and legal battles could sort out the facts and actual significance of Section 109 (1) (g) of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), which states that the former lawmakers have since lost their seats.
Ologunagba went on to say that the former House members voluntarily left the House and abruptly lost their seats for reasons that are only known to them. They further claimed that nothing prevented them from joining a different political party or allowing them to keep their House membership.
He asserts that the APC ought to reconcile with the former lawmakers’ leave of absence from their positions.
APC’s belief that the facts and true significance of Section 109 (1) (g) of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended)—which states that the former lawmakers have since lost their seats—can be muddied and lost in protracted legal proceedings and press releases is truly pitiful.
‘To ensure clarity, it is stated clearly in Section 109 (1)(g) of the Constitution that a member of the House of Assembly must resign from their position if, as an individual whose election to the Assembly was supported by a political party, they join another political party prior to their term being out of the duration of that House’s election.
‘Given that his affiliation with the aforementioned political party is not the consequence of a split within the party he previously belonged to, or of a combination of two or more political parties or groups, one of which previously provided sponsorship for him.’
Nothing in the proviso protects or permits the former members of the Rivers State House of Assembly to keep their membership after leaving the political party on which they were elected. Therefore, the former members of the House of Assembly voluntarily resigned their seats and, for reasons best known to themselves, forfeited them.
‘These former Rivers State House of Assembly members are solely responsible for their actions.’ for abandoning their positions in accordance with the Constitution, a move that cannot be undone. They ought to own up to their error in judgment and accept the inevitable fallout.
For the ninth time, the PDP warns the APC to avoid Rivers State; it should give up any ideas of seizing the State by force and quit agitating the public sphere by attempting to undo the irrevocable.
‘The APC should accept that the number of lawmakers remaining in the Rivers State House of Assembly will determine the quorum following the former lawmakers’ vacation of their seats, as stipulated by law. This will continue until a bye-election is held to fill the vacancies now existing in the Rivers State House of Installation Instructions as a consequence of the abandonment by the previous participants.’
