A senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Mr Olisa Agbakoba has restated that only factionalization of a political party can justify the defection of its elected members to another platform.
He said this while reacting to the political tension in
Rivers State over the plot by the 27 defected lawmakers to impeach Governor
Siminalayi Fubara.
Recall that in the peak of the crisis in the state, 27
lawmakers loyal to Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Minister, Nyesom Wike,
defected from the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, the platform under which they
were elected, to the All Progressives Congress, APC.
Speaking to Dailypost, Agbakoba, said the only people
constitutionally saddled with the responsibility of impeaching a sitting
governor are validly elected members of the State Assembly.
“So, what I’m trying to point out is that, are these 27
members who have crossed from PDP to APC actually validly members of the Rivers
State House of Assembly? There is a constitutional restriction on
cross-carpeting,” he declared.
The senior lawyer added that the ground to impeach a
governor is enshrined in the impeachment rules in the constitution, stressing
that a governor can only be impeached for gross misconduct.
According to him, “Whether the governor is impeachable for
gross-misconduct or not, is a matter that has a process. The whole thing is
whether the 27 men have the impeachable grounds. You cannot impeach a governor
for misbehaving in his house but in the context of his activity as a governor.”
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com