The Labour Party (LP) has vowed to take legal action to have the seats of the lawmakers declared vacant following the defection of four of its lawmakers to the All Progressives Congress.
Obiora Ifoh, LP’s National Publicity Secretary, announced the move in a statement following Thursday’s defection of federal MPs.
Speaker Tajudeen Abbas read four members’ letters of desertion on the floor of the green chamber: Tochukwu Okere (Imo), Donatus Mathew (Kaduna), Bassey Akiba (Cross River), Iyawe Esosa (Edo), and Daulyop Fom (Plateau).
Similarly, Erthiatake Ibori-Suenu, the daughter of former Delta State Governor Mr. James Ibori, has left the Peoples Democratic Party to join the All Progressives Congress.
Ifoh described the LP lawmakers’ defection as “unfortunate, irrational, and inconsistent with norms of democracy.”
The LP spokesman cited Section 68(g) of the 1999 constitution as being clear on when to defect and what occurs when a lawmaker sponsored by a political party decides to jump ship.
While stressing that the party would not engage in a battle with any of the defecting legislators, Ifoh promised to take them to court and petition the Speaker of the House to declare their seats empty.
He believes it is wrong for them to remain in their 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 to 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 further said, “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 opined 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.
According to him, the Labour Party attained its greatest success in the 2023 general election under the leadership of Barrister Julius Abure, winning a governorship, eight Senate seats, 35 House of Representative seats, and multiple state Houses of Assembly seats.
“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 the defectors’ assertions that they left the LP due to internal wranglings, the leader of the party caucus in the House, George Ozodinobi, disputed the claims while warning that the decision could 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.
