By Busari Kabirat
The popular human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, have stated clearly that any of the Rivers State House of Assembly members who defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to All Progressives Congress (APC), last year, have succeeded in forfeiting their seats.
About 25 members from state assembly Federal Capital Territory, have defected from PDP to the APC following the issue going on between Governor Siminalayi Fubara and Nyeson Wike, and this has led to the lawmakers’ establishment of another faction of the assembly as the governor made their seats known to be vacant.
However, President Bola Tinubu has intervened in the matter but the crisis still continued.
Femi Falana who on a programme “Sunday Politics” on the Channels Television said, all the lawmakers would be ousted from their seats for transitioning to the APC.
He said: the constitution has made it clear that “unless you can show and demonstrate that there is division in a political party that sponsored your election, you cannot remain in any legislative arm if you decamp to another party.
“The whole idea is that the constitution set out to ban political prostitution on the part of legislators.
“The Supreme Court made this clear in the case of Adetunde and the Labour Party, that you cannot decamp and then remain a member of a legislative house in Nigeria unless you can show that there is a division in your party.
“It doesn’t mean a division in a local government or a state. It has to be on the national level. That is the position of the court.”
