By John Ogunsemore
The Labour Party (LP) has vowed to declare vacant the seat of five members of the House of Representatives who defected from the party to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
National Publicity Secretary of LP, Obiorah Ifoh disclosed this in a statement on Thursday.
Daily Sun reports that LP lawmakers, Chinedu Okere (Owerri municipal/Owerri north/Owerri west constituency of Imo State), Mathew Donatus (Kaura federal constituency of Kaduna State), Akiba Bassey (Calabar municipal/Odukpani federal constituency of Cross River State), and Esosa Iyawe (Oredo federal constituency of Edo State), quit the party to join the ruling APC.
The LP spokesman said the defection was “irrational and untenable”, noting that the lawmakers have automatically lost their seats by virtue of their action.
He said the party would institute legal action to reclaim its mandate exercised by the lawmakers and approach the House Speaker to declare their seats vacant in line with House rules.
Ifoh said, “The leadership of Labour Party has received with discontentment the news of defection, today of some lawmakers representing the party in the National Assembly to the ruling APC.
“The Reps members include Tochukwu Okere (Imo), Donatus Mathew (Kaduna), Bassey Akiba (Cross River), Iyawe Esosa (Edo) and Daulyop Fom (Plateau).
“Their letter of defection to the APC was read on the Green Chamber floor by the Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas.
“The defection, to us, is quite unfortunate and we condemn the action which is irrational, untenable, inconsistent and alien to all known norms for which democracy stands for.
“Section 68(g) of the 1999 constitution is emphatic on when to defect and what happens when a lawmaker sponsored by a political party decides to jump ship.
“The Constitution states (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; “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;
“Since the formation of Labour Party in 2002, the party has been very active in the political scene having in the past produced a governor and several other elected officers across board.
“But it was in the 2023 general election that it achieved its highest feat under the leadership of Barrister Julius Abure having won a governorship seat, 8 Senate and 35 House of Representative seats as well as numerous state House of Assembly seats.
“The party also caused a major upset at the presidential election, one that many Nigerians still believed that Labour Party won.
“The successes achieved at that election expectedly elicited some pockets of internal pressure which have since being dealt with through internal peace mechanism and also through judicial means.
“Presently, while some other big parties are swimming in their own political tempest, Labour Party has since moved on having resolved all its challenges.
“It is therefore safe to say that there is absolute peace in the Labour Party.
“Therefore, no one elected on the ticket of the Labour Party has the constitutional protection to decamp from the party along with the party’s mandate.
“For emphasis, you will recall that the leadership of the party in 2022, in line with the party’s manifesto, threw the doors of the party open to all Nigerians who desire to be in the leadership cadre but could not because of the monetisation policies of some of the octopus parties then in existence.”
He said “the Labour Party thought it wise to percolate power down to the grassroot to serve the intended population rather than allowing power to be exclusively for the urbane and rich few.
“ Labour Party did not only give out free membership cards but also gave out free nomination forms to as many that could not afford the ridiculously low fees.
“Thousands, including Okada riders, brick layers, young unemployed graduates, and artisans of all sorts including a palm kernel crusher in Enugu, took advantage of the party’s policy to participate in the 2023 general election, for which many of them won their elections.
“These deserters did not win because of their pedigree or financial muscles but simple because of the ticket they ran on and by the grace of millions of people that vowed to see the end to the ‘entitlement mentality’ of a few cabal.
“Nigerians invested their tears and blood; their all to see these changes, entrusted their future on these neophyte lawmakers hoping that they will represent them well, but sooner than they were initiated into the cabal club with N160 million limousine and other pecuniary allowances running into hundreds of millions, they easily derailed.”
The LP spokesman said it was inappropriate and unacceptable for these lawmakers to continue to function as representatives of their constituencies “illegally”.
“The party has also decided to open a ‘Hall of Shame’ register for these lawmakers or any lawmaker or elected officer of the party who engages in fraudulent acts of defection without first dropping the mandate gotten under the ticket of the party,” he said.
