•Parties, legal luminaries disagree on demolition of House of Assembly complex, lawmakers’ defection, others

As the crisis rocking the Rivers State House of Assemble unfolds, party chieftains, lawyers and other stakeholders have continued to express divergent views which indicate that the feud may not end any time soon.

Although the national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says it is working assiduously to resolve the political crisis, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, who spoke to Saturday Sun, said the action of the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, who declared the seats of the 27 members that defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC), vacant, is in order.

Lawyers are also singing discordant tunes over the matter. While some have said that it was constitutionally in order for the Speaker to declare the seats of the lawmakers that have defected to the APC vacant, other lawyers have said only the courts could make such a declaration.

Spokesperson for the PDP in Rivers State, Tambari Sydney Gbara, said the party was not aware of the reasons advanced by the 27 members of the state House of Assembly for their defection.

“Every adult has freedom of association, and as a party, we have taken the action as it happened, and we are moving on.”

He said the demolition of the House of Assembly complex by the governor was purely an executive matter.

“The Commissioner for Information and Communications said the governor wants to build a more befitting edifice for the House of Assembly. You would recall that the immediate past governor also demolished the lawmakers’ quarters and built more befitting quarters for them,” he said.

Gbara described the declaration that the seats of the 27 lawmakers who joined the APC had become vacant as a purely legislative issue. He said the party was still reaching out to the defected lawmakers to see if they could rescind their decisions.

But the spokesman for APC in the state, Darlington Nwauju, said that it is only the court that is in a position to declare as vacant the seats of the 27 House of Assembly members who have officially announced their defection to the APC.

But a lawyer and former chairman of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Ikeja Branch, Dave Ajetomobi said the Speaker of the state House of Assembly has the constitutional power to declare the seats of the members who defected to the APC vacant, noting however that due process must be followed.

“If the seats are constitutionally declared vacant, done in line with the provisions of the constitution, then whatever is done by the remnants will be lawful. I understand that the Assembly building was razed by fire and needed either to be rehabilitated or rebuilt. The governor has claimed that it is beyond rehabilitation, hence reconstruction. Under the current dispensation, the executive has been carrying out the construction of buildings that house the other arms of government, including the judiciary. Though ordinarily, the judiciary and legislature are at liberty to give the design they want, it is the Ministry of Works that provides technical support for the construction.”

Another lawyer and rights activist, Kabir Akingbolu, however, disagreed with his colleague. He declared that the House has no such power to declare any member’s seat vacant in the circumstances of the case. In agreement with the APC spokesman in the state, he believes that it is the court that can do that. He described what the House has done as a comedy of errors.

Akingbolu averred that “under the law, a House of Assembly can only be properly constituted if the requisite quorum is formed. And to form a quorum, the House needs not less than one third of its members. Therefore, five members are not up to the number that can form a quorum in River State House of Assembly as they need not less than ten or eleven members to do so. That being the case, any purported action taken like passage of budget or any other thing, becomes illegal and the governor will also be involved, in the sense that spending money on a budget purportedly passed by five members will be unconstitutional and illegal,” he said.

He spoke further: “The demolition of the House of Assembly is a tragedy. This is usually the practice by some governors to maintain their hold on power. Same had been done in Edo State and that dangerous precedent was set and history is now repeating itself. Meanwhile, the demolition notwithstanding, the House business can be carried on within the precinct of the assembly complex and it will still be legal. What the law forbids is sitting outside the assembly complex.”

He however, called on the governor and his predecessor in office to close ranks by putting aside their differences and set good governance to the people.

Another lawyer, Gideon Okebu, told Saturday Sun: “On the question of if the Rivers State House of Assembly is properly constituted with four or five members, the position of the constitution is clear. Section 91 CFRN 1999 provides that a House of Assembly of a state shall consist of not less than 24 and not more than 40 members. In Section 96(1) CFRN 1999, the constitution provides that the quorum of a House of Assembly shall be 1/3 of all the members of the House. It is also clear from Section 96(2) that if the number of members at any sitting is fewer than one third of all the members, the house must adjourn and cannot carry on its business.

“In relation to the issue of if the House has the power to declare the seats of the defecting members vacant, the question must first be answered in light of the constitutional provision enunciated above. The Rivers State House of Assembly which has 32 members, out of which 27 defected to another party, leaving five members who did not defect. How can five members declare the seats of 27 members vacant when they haven’t even formed a quorum to sit and pass such a resolution? On what authority can they act, and can the actions of the five members be considered an act of the Rivers State House of Assembly? The constitutional answer is no.

“Notwithstanding the foregoing, if a House of Assembly is properly constituted, by virtue of Section 109(1)(g) of the Constitution, there is constitutional ground for declaring the seat of a member(s) vacant on the basis of defection to another party. However, it must also be noted that there are judicial precedents for and against declaring the seat of a legislator vacant on the basis of defection.

“Lastly, in relation to the issue of the demolition of the Assembly complex for alleged renovation and rehabilitation by the governor, the timing of the action says it all. After the defection of a significant number of members of the House of Assembly from his party, the governor suddenly decides it’s time to demolish the House of Assembly for rehabilitation.”

Reacting to the development, Labour Party National Publicity Secretary, Obiora Ifoh, expressed the view that the House of Assembly has the powers as bestowed on them by the Constitution in Section 109, subsection 1(g) to declare seats vacant when the occupiers cross-carpet.

“When you contest election under a particular party, you have to serve out that particular seat before you defect. If by any reason you want to leave, you have to drop the ticket because it is the party that sponsored you. You didn’t come on your own.

“What the constitution says is two thirds of legal members of the state assembly. And as it is now, the legal members of the state assembly in Rivers State are six because the other 27 have given up their positions. They are no longer members. They are former members. And what is remaining now is only six members and two third of that six members can take decisions. It is lawful. And the law has already recognized Ehie as the Speaker of the state. So whatever thing Ehie takes with that body of five or six is correct and is lawful and constitutional.”

Two other prominent lawyers, Dr Kayode Ajulo, and Kenneth Madu also insisted that the defection of the lawmakers to another party has put the death knell on their continued membership of the Rivers State House of Assembly. (Saturday Sun)

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