Six members of the House of Representatives from Rivers State have defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC)
The members announced their defections in separate letters read by the Speaker, Abbas Tajudeen, on the floor of the House on Tuesday in Abuja.
The defectors are Dekor Robinson, Bob Solomon, Hart Godwin, Obuzor Chukwuemele, Blessing Chigeru and Felix Ubche.
The lawmakers joined their other colleagues from Rivers, namely Goodhead Boma, Awaji-Inombek Abiante, Boniface Emerengwa and Umezuruike Manuchim of Labour Party (LP) who had, last week, announced their defection to APC.
The lawmakers cited the lingering crisis in PDP and their desire to support President Bola Tinubu’s re-election as part of the reasons for their defections.
With their defection, Rivers lawmakers left in the PDP are Kingsley Chinda, the Minority Leader and Nwogu Kelechi, while Anderson Igbiks has always been in APC.
Reacting to the development, the Minority Whip of the House, Ali Issah, urged the speaker to declare the seats of the defectors vacant, in line with provisions of the constitution.
Issah quoted the constitution as stating that a member of the legislature that defects from the party that sponsored him/her into the assembly should be made to vacate the seat.
Also reacting, the Minority Leader, Kingsley Chinda (Rivers-PDP), argued that no law or regulation allowed members to defect on the floor of the House.
Chinda challenged all the members in the House to provide any section that allows for any ceremony on the floor to mark defection of members.
He stated that while members have the right of association, defecting from one party to another should be done at the ward level and not on the floor on the House, to save legislative time.
Responding, the speaker said that the concerns of the opposition leaders were noted, adding, however, that nothing was wrong if a member decided to announce his/her defection on the floor.
According to Abbas, just as there is no law allowing defection on the floor, there is no law prohibiting it either, saying that nothing was wrong with adding a little more colour to defection ceremonies.
