Former speaker Martin Amaewhule and 24 other lawmakers, who are said to have lost their seat after defecting from the Peoples Democratic Party to the All Progressives Congress, on Monday held a mock session of the Rivers State House of Assembly in Port Harcourt and issued a 7-day ultimatum to Governor Siminalayi Fubara to re-present the 2024 budget to them.
The ultimatum came after the first sitting of the pro-Wike ‘lawmakers’ after last week’s appeal court decision, which had said that the State High Court had no competence to decide if the 25 lawmakers, loyal to FCT minister Nyesom Wike, had lost their seats or not, following their defection to APC.
Many had misinterpreted the appeal court ruling as meaning that Mr. Amaewhule and the 24 others had not lost their seats, even when the appellate court did not touch the issue of defection.
However, the preponderance of legal opinion is that they are no longer members of the Rivers Assembly, having defected when there was no crisis in the party they were deserting.
Section 109 of the Constitution states:
(1) 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 any other 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-
And 109(2) of the Constitution added: “The Speaker of the House of Assembly shall give effect to subsection (1) of this section, so however that the Speaker or a member shall first present evidence satisfactory to the House that any of the provisions of that subsection has become applicable in respect of the member.”
Meanwhile, the other House led by Victor Oko-Jumbo is also holding a parallel sitting, as at the time of filing this report-.
Recall that Governor Fubara had earlier presented the budget to the House loyal to him when his current Chief of Staff Edison Ehie presided as the Speaker.
Ehie and the other pro-Fubara lawmakers passed the budget estimates, and the governor signed the bill into law.
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