The embattled daughter of the former governor of Delta State, Chief James Onanefe Ibori Hon. Erhiatake Ibori-Suenu has filed a suit seeking to block attempt to formally declare vacant her seat as the Lawmaker representing Ethiope federal constituency at the National Assembly.
In an affidavit deposed to, at the Federal High Court Abuja, the nation’s capital, she listed the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Clerk of the House and PDP as defendants, according to Vanguard report, cited the lingering internal party crisis as her major reason for detecting from PDP to the APC.
She argued that no attempt should be made to declare her seat vacant because her defection was in accordance with the rule of law and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
She stated thus: “For over a year, the 3rd defendant (PDP) has been enmeshed in a series of unresolved leadership crises at the national, which crisis has driven the partly into two implacable camps.
“The 3rd defendant (PDP) started grappling with the internal strife before the 2023 presidential election, particularly after the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP primaries conducted for the election of the party’s presidential candidate.
“The division in the party”, she went on, “is evident in the call by supporters of the party’s 2023 presidential election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar for the suspension of the former Rivers State Governor (and current Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria) and some others in his camp for anti-party activities, while the former Governor of Rivers State’s supporters had also made counter demands for disciplinary actions against the former vice president and his allies including Sule Lamido and Babangida Aliyu, former Governors of Jigawa and Niger states, respectively, amongst others, for anti-party activities”.
The action came barely 24 hours after the National Publicity Secretary of PDP Debo Ologunagba issued a press statement emphatically stating that it is Settled law that by her defection from the PDP, the political Party platform upon which she was elected into the House of Representatives, she willfully vacated her seat, “Thus rendering it vacant by virtue of the self-executory provision of Section 68 (1) (g) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as Amended).
“For clarity, Section 68 (1) of the 1999 Constitution provides that: a Member of the Senate or House of Representatives shall vacate his seat in the House of which he is a member if … (g) being a person whose election to the House 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…
“With this unambiguous Constitutional provision and its clear interpretation by the Supreme Court, Hon. Ibori-Suenu has irredeemably lost her seat, rights, privileges, recognition and obligations accruable to a Member of the House of Representatives.
“Hon. Ibori-Suenu should therefore stop parading herself as a member of the House of Representatives as such would amount to impersonation with likely criminal consequences.
“The PDP calls on the National Assembly Sergeant-at-Arms to note that Hon. Ibori-Suenu has ceased to be a member of the House of Representatives”, according to the press statement from the PDP Spokesperson
Credit: The TownHall
