Indications emerged yesterday that the Senate would declare vacant the seat of any senator who defects from the political platform through which he was elected into the upper legislative chamber.. Separate pronouncements to that effect were by Senate President David Mark and the Chairman, Senate Committee on Rules and Business, Ita Enang. The Senate resumes next week.
The Senate’s stance of unseating defecting legislators is contrary to stance of the House of Representatives on the issue.
It would be recalled that in December last year, as part of the fallouts of the crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), 37 out of its 208 members in the House of Representatives, defected to All Progressives Congress (APC) without any one of them losing his legislative seat, albeit on the strength of a court injunction granted them and read on their behalf by the Speaker of the House, Aminu Tambuwal, when the lawmakers defected.
But in what looks like a pre-emptive measure against further defections to the APC allegedly being planned by some PDP senators like their counterparts in the House of Representatives, the Senate President in a statement signed on his behalf yesterday by his Special Adviser on Media and Public Affairs, Kola Ologbondiyan said the defection drift will no longer be allowed against the party, as he in particular would do the needful. The Senate would resume next week.
“We will arrest the current situation and save our party from further disintegration. Some Nigerians are talking about Tsunami in the PDP because of the defection by some members of our party holding elective and non-elective positions. But as leaders, we will not sit by and continue to allow this drift. We shall do the needful and ensure that we save our great party,” he said.
Also, in a media briefing with the Senate Press Corps on the same issue, Senator Ita Enang in a position paper presented, submitted that defecting senators should be prepared to lose their seats in line with relevant laws of the land, if they carry out the defection plan.
According to Enang in the paper titled ‘Position by Senator Ita Enang on Legislative Seats and Defection of Legislators,’ it is acceptable for politicians to defect from one political party to the other but not acceptable in the eye of the law for any one of them to defect along with the mandate they secured on the platform of the political party from which they are defecting.
He said: “It is true that every Nigerian has the right to freedom of association as guaranteed under Section 40 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (As Amended) and Article 10 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act Cap. A9, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria. 2004. Consequently, every Nigerian
has the right to join a political party, merge with a political party and form an alliance with another political party. The question however is, while it may be acceptable for politicians to defect from one party to another, is it acceptable for them to retain their mandate from the parties from which they have defected? The answer is no. It should be noted that there are consequential laws guiding such defections.
“Section 68 (1)(g) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (As Amended) provides 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 faction by one of which he was previously sponsored.
“The provisions of this section of the Constitution are explicit in matters which concern the legislature. It clearly mandates that any member of the legislature, who intends to defect to another party, must prove that division exists in the party of which he was a member, or that his party has merged with two or more parties or factions.”
Enang, who argued further that the fact that such defections in favour of or against PDP, have been taking place in the past without anybody raising alarm does not mean that relevant laws against it do not exist, also cited the recent case of a lawmaker in Ondo State who lost his legislative seat for defecting from the party upon which he got mandate from the seat.
“Attention should be drawn to a precedent from 2012 where a State lawmaker, a member of the Federal House of Representatives, Mr. Ifedayo Abegunde, representing Akure North/Akure South Constituency that defected from the Labour Party in Ondo State, lost his seat. The court upheld the contention that the lawmaker did not prove a division (or faction)
within the Labour Party. It is also relevant that in reaching its decision, the court relied on the Supreme Court’s pronouncement in Amaechi v. INEC (2008) 1 MJSC 1 at 207, that “if it is only a party that canvasses for votes, it follows that it is a party that wins an election. A good or bad candidate may enhance or diminish the prospect of his party in winning, but at the end of the day it is the party that wins or loses an election,” he added.
On argument by the already defected and the defecting federal lawmakers that their actions are guided by the fact that PDP is divided, Enang countered by citing the judgment delivered by an Abuja High Court in October last year against such submission.