*‘Fubara Can’t Change Sitting Venue Of House Of Assembly’
HUMAN rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), has stated that members of the Rivers State House of Assembly who last year defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC) at the peak of the political crisis in the state have automatically forfeited their positions in the Assembly, going by the 1999 Constitution, as amended.
Recall that 25 members of the Assembly loyal to the former governor of Rivers State and Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, dumped the PDP on whose platform they were elected switched to join the APC at the height of the political crisis between Wike and Governor Siminalayi Fubara.
The affected lawmakers have insisted that they remained members of the Assembly. Last week, a state High Court in Port Harcourt had restrained them from parading themselves as members of the Assembly.
Speaking on a television programme on the vexed matter, Falana asserted that the lawmakers would be ousted from their seats for transitioning to the APC, citing the constitution, adding: “Unless you can show and demonstrate that there is division in a political party that sponsored your election, you cannot remain in any legislative arm if you decamp to another party.
“The whole idea is that the constitution set out to ban political prostitution on the part of legislators.”
He pointed to the court order restraining the 25 lawmakers from representing themselves as legislators in the state, as well as prohibiting Martin Amaewhule from parading himself as the speaker of Assembly, noting: “It may be very difficult to persuade the court to allow them to remain in the legislative house unless they are prepared to go back to the people and have their mandate renewed by the people.
“The Supreme Court made this clear in the case of Adetunde and the Labour Party (LP) that you cannot decamp and then remain a member of a legislative house in Nigeria unless you can show that there is a division in your party. It doesn’t mean a division in a local government or a state; it has to be on the national level. That is the position of the court.”
The crisis started last year when Wike’s core loyalists, who constituted majority of members, attempted to impeach Fubara.
The affected lawmakers, led by Amaewhule, aligning with Wike, defected from the ruling PDP in the state to the APC, citing internal division within the PDP.
Meanwhile, Falana has stated that Fubara cannot change the sitting venue of the Assembly, saying the governor does not have the power to direct members to meet at the Government House, as the legislature is independent of the executive arm of the government.
He stressed: “I would like to assume that the governor issued that Executive Order before the intervention of the High Court in Rivers State.
“The House is independent of the executive, so the governor cannot tell the House where to sit.”
