The member representing the Andoni-Opobo/Nkoro federal constituency in Rivers State at the House of Representatives, Awaji-Inombek Abiante, has said 27 lawmakers from the state who defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) had become former members.
Naija News reports that Abiante made this known during an interview on Channels TV on Friday evening.
He said the Supreme Court’s decision is evident on the issue, and the lawmakers have lost their seats, adding they decided to leave constitutional duties assigned to them.
He stated, “Some members have decided to leave the constitutional duties assigned to them. The Supreme Court had made a decision on that, that if you leave the political party on the platform of which you were elected, when there is no division, you lose your seat.
“As it stands today, we had members who are former members of the House of Assembly. On their volition, they decided to leave and they are gone. They should be courageous enough to stand up to the choice they have made.”
Speaking on the demolition of the Assembly complex on Wednesday, which some lawmakers had described as the height of recklessness, Abiante said there was no sinister motive behind it by the government of Governor Siminalayi Fubara.
Abiante said the immediate past governor of the state and Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, currently at loggerheads with his successor, was aware that the Assembly complex had become defective.
He added that the Assembly complex should not be seen differently if some other public buildings had been demolished and rebuilt in the past.
He stated, “On the demolition of the chamber, even before the exit of the immediate past governor, on the day he commissioned the residential quarters of the speaker, he brought the attention of all of us that the chamber indeed could not stand the test of time. It had leakages all over and there had been a recent incident, whether it was burnt or there was explosion, it failed an integrity test.
“Nobody would want to expose themselves to that danger. Is there a history of having to rebuild public asset? The answer is yes. The Mile One market has been brought down and reconstructed; the Fruit Garden has been brought down and reconstructed; the Assembly Quarters has been brought down and reconstructed, so what is the difference? They were all public assets and had to be rebuilt, and in rebuilding them, you had to bring down the previous structures.”