Defected lawmakers must lose seats, PDP insists

The Peoples Democratic Party is insisting that its members in the National Assembly who defected to the All Progressives Congress must lose their seats.

The PDP told an Abuja Federal High Court so in its preliminary objection to a suit filed by Senator Bello Hayatu and 50 others, including members of the House of Representatives who defected to the APC, to stop their seats from being declared vacant.

PDP, its National Chairman, the Senate President, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the Independent National Electoral Commissioners are listed as the defendants in the suit, which came up for hearing on Wednesday before Justice Ahmed Mohammed.

In the suit, the plaintiffs are asking the court to restrain the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives from conducting any proceedings aimed at declaring their seats, and that of any other member of the PDP who intend to join another political party, vacant.

They are equally asking the court to restrain INEC from accepting nominations of any candidate and conducting bye-elections aimed at filing their seats.

The court had on December 17, 2013, ordered all the parties involved in the suit to maintain status quo, pending the determination of the matter. After the order, the PDP wrote Speaker Aminu Tambuwal, asking him to order the 37 defected lawmakers to return to the party.