11 Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who notified the Senate of their intent to cross carpet to All Progressives Congress survived a plot to have their seats in the upper house declared vacant quashed by the Senate President, David Mark
Other PDP senators led by the chairman, Senate Committee on Rules and Business, Ita Enang, PDP Akwa-Ibom North East,raised a point of order aimed at declaring the seats of five out of the 11 defecting senators vacant for making the pronouncement on Tuesday.
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Enang, citing a composite point of order consisting of Order 14 of the Senate Standing Rule and Section 68 Subsection (1g) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, had argued that the defectors having dumped the party that brought them to Senate, had automatically lost their membership going by the constitutional provision.
According to him, the constitution states that “a member of the Senate or of the House of Representatives shall vacate his seat in the House of which he is a member if, 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.
“Provided that his membership of the latter political party is not as a result of 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.”
Being a decision reached after the Senate PDP caucus meeting at the residence of the Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba, on Tuesday, the PDP senators chorused as Enang was making his presentation and unanimously urged Mark to declare seats of the affected defected senators vacant.
But Mark, while ruling Enang out of order, said since the matter of defection in the Senate is before a competent court of law, he would not grant him his request in line with the Senate Standing Order 53(5) which bars him from making any pronouncement on any subject matter that has already become a subject of litigation in court.
Mark, who relied on the pending suit at the Federal High Court, said further comments on the matter would amount to subjudice.
He said, “You were in the chamber here yesterday and I did explain that the matter is in a court of competent jurisdiction. We all agreed that no reference should be made in a matter before a competent court of law. My ruling is that I am not going to be different because it is a constitutional matter.
“I shall not make any more pronouncements on it. The decision that you ask me to make is not possible.”
However, Mark’s position did not stop the PDP senators from turning the heat on the defecting senators and their APC supporters.
Thomson Sekibo, PDP Rivers East, later argued that the rules upon which the Senate President based his refusal were inconsistent with Section 1 of the Constitution.
However, the Senate President ruled him out of order, saying “Senator Sekibo, the subject matter in which you spoke vigorously is before a court of competent jurisdiction which I cannot treat here as a subject matter.”