CSO threatens to sue 27 Rivers lawmakers who defected to APC

A civil society organisation under the aegies of International Society for Social Justice and Human Rights (ISSJHR), has threatened to file a lawsuit against the 27 members of the Rivers State House of Assembly who recently defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC)

The CSO, in a statement on Friday by its Chancellor, Chief Jackson Omenazu, said it was unconstitutional for the lawmakers to defect from a party where they emerged to represent the people of the state.

The statement added that the action of the lawmakers was a breach of people’s trust and mandate as well as criminal for the them to remain under the previous mandate with a different manifesto.

Omenazu added that the failure of the lawmakers to comply with the provisions of the constitution by vacating their seats would be translated as unlawful and would face a legal battle.

“By constitutional provisions of the 1999 Constitution as amended, the 27 parliamentarians in Rivers State who abandoned their mandate given to them by political parties have seized to be parliamentarians,” the statement reads.

“The moral position of the constitution dictates that the people have been fooled at last. Hence there’s a need to seek a fresh mandate to determine their acceptance based on their newfound manifesto.

“This above-the-law mentality should stop forthwith. No citizen is a half citizen and we all have equal rights. The few who are temporarily privileged shouldn’t in any way take others as fools.

“The International Society for Social Justice and Human Rights demands the immediate vacation of the parliamentary seats in the Rivers State House of Assembly by the defected parliamentarians. There should be no middle ground about it; a mandate abandoned is a mandate lost.”

The statement also noted that apart from instituting the lawsuit, the group will also use protests to demand for justice for the people of the state whose mandate was about to be brazenly manipulated through crass political brigandage.

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