The three state House of Assembly members who defected to the All Progressives Congress last week will face legal action from the Peoples Democratic Party’s Edo State chapter.
In an interview on Sunday, Chris Nehikhare, the Edo PDP Caretaker Committee’s publicity secretary, revealed this.
Three new members of the APC are Sunday Ojezele (Esan South East), Bright Iyamu (Orhionmwon South Constituency II), and Donald Okugbe (Akoko Edo Constituency II). The sole member of the Labour Party in the Assembly, Richard Edosa, also defected to the ruling APC.
The APC currently has 13 seats, the PDP has 11, and the Labour Party has lost its lone member to the APC as a result of these defections.
Speaking on behalf of the lawmakers who had defected, Edosa blamed the parties’ continuous internal problems at the state and national levels for their decision to quit. However, the Edo PDP spokesperson rejected the explanation offered by the lawmakers who defected, stating that the party would sue them to regain their seats in the House of Assembly, in a conversation with our correspondent on Sunday.
Nehikhare claimed that Okugbe and Iyamu will soon be subject to similar legal procedures, noting that the party had already sued Ojezele, who had previously defected to the APC.
He said, “First of all, three out of the four defectors are PDP members. Of those three, Hon. Sunny Ojezele defected earlier, and we have already taken him to court, seeking to declare his seat vacant and retrieve our mandate.”
“Any of our elected officials who decamp to another party will definitely be taken to court. Those who decamp got elected on the platform of our party, so it is our mandate, and we will use legal means to reclaim it.”
Nehikhare expressed confidence in a favourable outcome in the court cases.
“The law is clear on what happens when someone defects to another party, and we expect the law to be followed to the letter in the case we have instituted and the one we will institute against the others,” he added. “They have no basis for defecting because there is no division in our party, either in Edo State or at the national level. We have one leadership, one secretariat at both levels.”
