The Ebonyi state chapter of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Thursday said the speaker of the state House of Assembly, Ogbonna Nwifuru, and the other 14 lawmakers had no jurisdiction to declare seats of 3 PDP lawmakers vacant.
Nwifuru during the sitting of the assembly Tuesday declared the seats of 3 lawmakers: Ali Okechukwu(Ishielu North), Franca Okpo, Abakaliki North) and Victor Aleke (Ebonyi West) who are of PDP vacant after reading the said resignation letters from them.
Reacting to the purported resignation, state chairman of the party, Mr Tochukwu Okorie, noted that Nwifuru has no powers to declare anybody’s seat vacant, not to talk of receiving letters.
He noted that Nwifuru remains sacked as long as he never appealed the Federal High Court judgment that sacked him and 14 others.
Mr Okorie said: “It is the position of the law that Ogbonna Nwifuru and the other 14 who he led to go and usurp the premises of House of Assembly are interlopers. They are not members of the House; they have been sacked by the court of competent jurisdiction. They have no basis in law or in fact to go and sit and purport to receive resignation. What do they call themselves? People who do not belong to the House are going to sit and receive resignation from who?
“Even if anybody submitted resignation letter which is all fallacious, it is all forgery but assuming (without conceding) that somebody was mad enough to have left his or her house and walk straight to the House of Assembly to submit resignation letter, on what authority did they sit to receive the letter? Nwifuru is not the speaker of Ebonyi state House of Assembly, so he has no power to remove anybody or to receive resignation letter from anybody.
“You do know that a Federal High court in Abuja removed them from the office because they
effectively resigned their positions in the House when they defected from PDP to APC. They choose apparently to pursue loftier political objectives, leaving the House. That is the ruling of the court and that is the way it stands. Now can they then, after resigning (in the language of the court – the court said they are deemed to have resigned), can they now after resigning come back and sit to receive resignation LETTERSfrom other people?
“Now, that judgement subsists, it has not been appealed AND there is no stay of execution, there is no order of any court suspending the implementation of that order and there is no court of coordinate jurisdiction that can go and say they are issuing order to go and ambush the judgment of another court. That is not possible. And that is my position, the position of PDP in the state.”|
