The Senator representing Anambra North Senatorial District may be yanked off her coveted seat in a matter of weeks as the Court has ordered her to file her defence within five (5) days in a suit filed by one of her constituents through his Counsel, Barrister Johnmary Jideobi over her defection from the Peoples Democratic Party to the All Progressive Grand Alliance [APGA] when there was no division in the national leadership of the PDP.
The Senator representing Anambra North Senatorial District may be yanked off her coveted seat in a matter of weeks as the Court has ordered her to file her defence within five (5) days in a suit filed by one of her constituents through his Counsel, Barrister Johnmary Jideobi over her defection from the Peoples Democratic Party to the All Progressive Grand Alliance [APGA] when there was no division in the national leadership of the PDP.
It would be recalled that the Senator dumped the PDP sometime in June and indicated her interest to return to the Senate through APGA. This did not go down well with her constituents as one of them has approached the Court with the following reliefs:
1. A DECLARATION of this Honourable Court that upon an intimate reading and complete understanding of section 68(1) (g) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended, and especially in view of the decision of the Nigerian Supreme Court in Abegundu v. Ondo State House of Assembly, (2015) 8 NWLR. Part 1461 Page 314, the Defendant who defected to the All Progressives Grand Alliance from the People’s Democratic Party [on which platform she was elected a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and where there was no faction as at time of her defection] ought to have her seat in the Senate declared vacant by this Honourable Court
2. AN ORDER of this Honourable Court declaring vacant the Anambra North Senatorial seat currently occupied by SENATOR STELLA ODUAH-OGIEMWONYI and cancelling her Certificate of Return.
3. AN ORDER of this Honourable Court compelling the Defendant to relinquish and return FORTHWITH [to the Treasury Single Account domiciled at the Central Bank of Nigeria] all salaries, emoluments, allowances and such other monetary benefits [howsoever named] paid to her as a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria from June, 2018 [being the month of her unlawful defection] to the delivery of judgment in this suit or end of May, 2019 [whichever one occurs first] and to file [with the Registry of this Honourable Court] an affidavit of having complied with the terms of this order Court’s Order within fourteen (14) days of the making of this Order.
4. AN ORDER directing the Honourable Attorney-General of the Federation and the Inspector-General of Police to execute FORTHWITH the judgment of this Court within fourty-eight (48) hours of its delivery.
In his affidavit, the Claimant contended that:
(k) That the conduct of the Defendant in defecting from the People’s Democratic Party to All Progressives Grand Alliance under the circumstances [and for the reasons that she did] has dealt a mortal blow to the fortunes of my Party, the People’s Democratic Party in Anambra North.
(l) That the conduct of the Defendant being challenged herein if not condemned and upturned by this Honourable Court will continue to encourage political prostitution, legislative rascality and destroys the reasons for the laws made to regulate the defection of National Assembly Members by the Constitution of Nigeria itself.
(m) That the continuous stay of the Defendant at the Senate of the National Assembly does no longer represent my interest or that of thousands of other members of our Senatorial District who voted her in on the basis of their faith in our Party’s manifesto which they believed the Defendant was capable of representing in the Senate.
(n) That the Defendant is now representing adverse interests of the people who fought my party tooth and nail [in the year 2015] to forestall the emergence of the Defendant as the Senator Representing Anambra North Senatorial District on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party.
The Court has fixed the 29th of August for the hearing of the suit.
