Rivers: LP faults rescreening, confirmation of commissioners who resigned

The Rivers State chapter of the Labour Party has faulted the rescreening and confirmation of nine commissioner-designates by the state House of Assembly, describing it as illegal.

The spokesperson of the party, Gogo Welington, stated this in Port Harcourt, insisting that the House, currently is not properly constituted.

According to Welington, the issue of the 27 lawmakers who defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC) is now a constitutional matter.

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He said: “It is a constitutional matter and you know some of these matters are before the courts of competent jurisdiction. They should allow the courts to take their decision.”

The LP spokesman, while expressing his backing of recent protests by some groups in the state that the lawmakers must vacate their seats for cross carpeting, noted that the law is clear on the issue of defection.

“For the protest, the people are right, because the law is very clear that if you defect to another party, you are ready to vacate your seat if there is no internal wrangling in your party.

“And in the PDP, there is no wrangling. So the 27 members of the Assembly should know that their seats are already vacant, because constitutionally, they had already left the PDP.”

Ripples Nigeria reports that, on Wednesday, the Rivers State House of Assembly screened and confirmed nine commissioner-nominees said to be loyal to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, who had earlier resigned from the administration of Governor Siminalayi Fubara in the heat of the crisis that rocked the minister and the governor.

The commissioners were asked to ‘take a bow and go’ after a brief introduction of themselves, after which the Speaker, Martin Amaewhule, directed the House Clerk to forward the names of the commissioner-designates to the governor for necessary action.

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