By ONYEKACHI EZE
ONYEKACHI EZE writes that the festering political crisis in Rivers State is a challenging one for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) amidst misconceptions over the party’s role in the matter
The political crisis in Rivers State may have stretched the internal crisis management mechanism of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to a limit but the role the leadership of the party is playing in the crisis is nonetheless worrisome.
Section 109 (1) (g) of the 1999 Constitution says 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 the expiration of the period for which that House was elected…”
The only proviso however, is if there is “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.” At the moment, or even at the time of the defection, there was no division in PDP. There is a precedent to the case at hand: in the case of Abegunde vs Ondo State House of Assembly and others, which was decided by the Supreme Court.
The apex court in a judgement delivered in 2015, said the defection of Abegunde, who represented Akure South/North Federal Constituency of Ondo State in the House of Representatives, could not be validated since his excuse of purported division in the Labour Party through which he was elected to the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) was not in existence at the national level of the party. Then Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Mahmud Mohammed, who led the seven-man panel of justices that decided the case, held that the lawmaker acted illegally by abandoning the party that sponsored his election.
According to the court, “the principles enunciated by this court in the two cases – FEDECO v Goni supra and Attorney General of the Federation v Abubakar supra – is to the effect that only such fractionalisation, fragmentation, splintering or ‘division’ that makes it impossible or impracticable for a particular party to function as such will, by virtue of the proviso to section 68(1)(g), justify a person’s defection to another party and the retention of his seat for the unexpired term in the house in spite of the defection.
Otherwise, has rightly held by the courts below, the defector automatically loses his seat.” The court also asserted that by virtue of the combined provisions of section 68(1)(a) and (g) as well as section 222(a), (e) and (f) of the constitution, division in a party at the state level did not entitle a legislator to abandon the party on whose platform he or she contested and won his or her seat.
made up of 32 members. This means that with the sack of the 27 members loyal to Wike, the number has reduced to five.
At the moment, only four members are available for Fubara to work with, since former Speaker Edison Ehie who resigned to serve as the governor’s chief of staff, has not yet been replaced. Recall that the governor presented the 2024 Appropriation Bill to the five-member Assembly which sat and passed. The budget is already being implemented.
The house also screened a commissioner nominee who was later sworn in a Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice. The constitution says one-third of the house shall form a quorum in any business of the house. Perhaps, the Rivers’ scenario will help to deepen the nation’s democracy