27 Rivers Assembly Seats Declared Vacant, INEC Tasked to Conduct Fresh Election

27 constituency seats in the Rivers State House of Assembly have been declared vacant by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

Daily Report Nigeria reports that the PDP  demanded for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to immediately commence processes of conducting fresh elections into the 27 State Constituencies in Rivers State.

This follows the defection of the 27 house members from the ruling PDP to the All Progressives Congress (APC), on Monday.

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According to the PDP, the “27 former (Rivers) state lawmakers” willfully abandoned their seats by way of their defection to the APC.

This was contained in a statement by the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Hon. Debo Ologunagba, in Abuja, on Monday.

Debo said, “The PDP asserts that by defecting from the PDP, the political Party platform on which they were elected into the Rivers State House of Assembly, the seats of the respective 27 former lawmakers have become vacant by virtue of the provision of Section 109 (1) (g) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended).

“For the avoidance of doubt, Section 109 (1) of the 1999 Constitution provides that “a member of a House of Assembly shall vacate his seat in the House if … (g) being a person whose election to the House of Assembly 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.

“By reason of the above Constitutional provision and its clear interpretation by the Supreme Court, the 27 defected members of the Rivers State House of Assembly have vacated and lost their seats, rights, privileges, recognition and obligations accruable to members of the Rivers State House of Assembly.

“The PDP therefore demands that the Speaker of the Rivers State House Assembly immediately comply with the provision of the Constitution by declaring the seats of the 27 former lawmakers vacant.

“In view of the vacancy now existing in the 27 State Constituencies in Rivers State, the PDP demands that INEC should within the stipulated period under the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) conduct a fresh election to fill the vacancies.”

Recall that the defecting house members cited differences within the PDP as reason for their action.