A legal luminary, Justice Osai Ahiakwo has called on the 26 legislators who defected from the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP to the All Progressives Congress, APC, to equally resign as lawmakers.
He said this in a statement issued in Calabar, capital of Cross River State.
Few days ago, the factional speaker of the five-man assembly loyal to Governor Sim Fubara Ehie Ogerenye Edison, officially resigned from the Assembly.
Ahiakwo commended the former Speaker’s action, saying it was worthy of emulation by the former lawmakers who defected from the PDP to the APC.
“There is no gain-saying the fact that currently, the Legislative Arm of Government in Rivers State is non-existent as a result of the defection of the majority of its members thereby rendering the State House of Assembly comatose.
He said, “Section 109 (1)(b) applies to the circumstance at which the Rt. Honourable Ehie Ogerenye Edison had exited the Assembly.
“The lawmakers who defected to APC must succumb to Section 109 (1)(g) which unambiguously provides that being people whose elections to the House of Assembly were sponsored by a political party and in this instant case the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and they having declared as All Progressive Congress (APC) members, being another political party before the expiration of their tenure, shall (i.e must) vacate their seats in the House.”
Ahiakwo said in the alternative, and to avoid a constitutional crisis that may lead to anarchy in the state, in the event that the defected lawmakers were not yielding to the aforesaid position of the law, “the constituents must rise to defend the constitution by addressing petitions to the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, signed by one-half of the persons registered to vote within the defected lawmakers’ constituencies alleging their loss of confidence in them as their representatives.”
He expressed the hope that “once this was accomplished in compliance with Section 110 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) then law and order shall be restored in the State.”