By AZIMAZI MOMOH
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described the directive by the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami, to Inspector General of Police to provide security for some Edo State House of Assembly members-elect as thoughtless, unconstitutional, null and void.
“nothing in sections 90, 91, 101 and 104 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) cited by the Attorney General, empowers him to go to the streets of any part of our nation to assemble some clowns and declare them members-elect of any House of Assembly, without any electoral mandate.” the party spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, said at press briefing on Saturday.
“It is trite in law that with their seats having been declared vacant by the House, they have consequently lost their memberships and respective mandates.”
Ologbondiyan further stated that the said individuals have been absent for 180 days during which they abandoned their mandate and for which their seats were declared vacant in line with the rules of the legislature and the laws of the federation.
He said the Attorney General ought to have availed himself of the facts that the Edo State House of Assembly, as constitutionally constituted, had written to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) asking it to conduct fresh elections into the vacant seats in line with the provisions of the constitution and the Electoral Act.
“if the AGF had bothered to get his facts correctly before issuing the unconstitutional warrant for the gestapo operation to the IGP, he would have known that the matter of the declaration of the seats of the errant individuals and the request for the conduct of fresh elections to fill the vacant seats are pending in competent Court in Edo State at the instance of his “clients” and therefore it is sub-justice for him to speak on it or cause an action to be taken,”Ologbondiyan said.
Ologbondiyan reminded Malami and APC that “he does not possess the powers of a competent court and as such, cannot, by any stroke of imagination, make any judicial declaration whatsoever on a matter that is before a court of competent jurisdiction.”
He declared that PDP completely rejects “this thoughtless and partisan directive of the AGF which is directly responsible for Thursday’s attempt to topple democratic order and the Edo state House of Assembly”
” Nigerians can now see those who provided the arsenal for the failed coup against democratic order in Edo state as well as those engineering a breakdown of law and order in the state.” Ologbondiyan said.
Ologbondiyan urges Nigerians to hold the Attorney General, Malami, responsible should there be any violence before, during and after the Edo state governorship election arising from the contents of his ill-advised letter. (The Guardian)
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