Vacant seat: LP criticises Reps defection to APC

NIGERIA —The Labour Party on Friday condenmed the defection of four of its lawmakers to the All Progressive Congress, threatened to take legal actions against them.

Following the defection, the party said it would approach the speaker to declare the lawmaker’s seat vacant.

The National Publicity Secretary of LP, Obiora Ifoh, revealed this in a statement issued in the wake of Thursday's defection of the federal lawmakers.

The four lawmakers who had their letters of defection read on the floor of the green chamber by the Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas were Tochukwu Okere (Imo), Donatus Mathew (Kaduna), Bassey Akiba (Cross River), Iyawe Esosa (Edo) and Daulyop Fom (Plateau).

Similarly, the daughter of former Delta State Governor, Mr James Ibori, Erthiatake Ibori-Suenu, also ended her relationship with the Peoples Democratic Party as she joined the APC.

Ifoh condemned the defection of the LP lawmakers as “unfortunate, irrational, and inconsistent with the norms of democracy.”

Referencing the constitution, the LP spokesman said, Section 68(g) of the 1999 constitution emphasized when to defect and what happens when a lawmaker sponsored by a political party decides to jump ship.

According to him, it is inappropriate for them to keep holding on to the seats after becoming APC converts.

He said, “Though the Labour Party leadership is undaunted by the defection, it has however, elected not to allow it slide by instructing its legal team to take legal actions against the defectors and also commence the process of regaining our mandates in line with the 1999 constitution and 2022 Electoral Act as amended.

“The party will also approach the Speaker of the House of Representatives to declare vacant the seats occupied by these former Labour Party members in line with the House Rules. It is inappropriate and unacceptable for these lawmakers to continue to function as representatives of their constituencies illegally.”

He added that, “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 a fraudulent act of defection without first dropping the mandate got under the ticket of the party.

“These lawmakers will feature prominently in the register. We call on Nigerians to beware of this genre of politicians lacking in clear democratic ideology and ethos rather than ‘Jumpology’ ideology, jumping from one party to the other in disregard to the enabling laws and without any ideological leaning.

“If we want this democracy to thrive, we must isolate these political merchants and opportunists and help bury their mercantilist political enterprise by snubbing, affronting and rejecting them in future polls, having exhibited a grave level of character deficit by betraying public trust.”

He argued that since the formation of the Labour Party in 2002, the party has been active on the political scene, having in the past produced a governor and several elected officers across the board.

“The party also caused a major upset at the presidential election, one that many Nigerians still believed that the Labour Party won. For emphasis, the 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 of people, including Okada riders, bricklayers, 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 simply because of the ticket and by the grace of millions of people that vowed to see the end to the ‘entitlement mentality’ of a few cabals,” he decried.

Reacting to claims by the defectors that they left the LP because of internal wranglings, the leader of the party caucus in the House, George Ozodinobi dismissed the claims, even as he warned that the decision may come back to haunt them.

“We don’t have any crisis in our party. There is nothing like a faction in the Labour Party. When people enter into political parties without having an ideology, they show that they cannot be trusted.

“I stand bold to say that this rotten carrot being dangled before them by the party that has brought so much hardship to the people will soon be clear before Nigerians. The people are waiting for them in 2027,” Ozodinobi, who doubles as the Deputy Minority Whip, added.

Also, House Minority Whip, Ali Isa chided the ‘unfortunate’ decision of the defectors.

“I sympathise with them for deciding to move to the APC, considering the hardship we are going through in this country. I want to say that there is a need to declare their seats vacant,” he said.

Speaker Tajudeen Abbas who presided over Thursday's plenary welcomed the defectors to what he described as "the biggest political party in Africa."