Labour Party to take Legal Action Against Defected Lawmakers

By Miracle Ogunde

Following the defection of four House of Representativs members to the ruling All Progressives Congress, (APC), the Labour Party, LP has vowed to take legal action against the lawmakers.

The LP spokesman Obiora Ifoh said in a statement said the party has directed its legal team to commence the legal actions against the defectors.

The statement read, “Though the Labour Party leadership is undaunted by the defection, it has however, elected not to allow it slide and has therefore instructed its legal team to commence the legal actions against the defectors and to also commence the process of regaining our mandates in line with the 1999 constitution and 2022 Electoral Act as amended,”

He refuted claims that the LP is in crisis, saying “there is absolute peace in the Labour Party. Therefore, no one elected on the ticket of the Labour Party has the constitutional protection to decamp from the party along with the party’s mandate”.

The party said it “received with discontentment the news of defection,” describing it as “quite unfortunate and we condemn the action which is irrational, untenable, inconsistent and alien to all known norms for which democracy stands for”.

Ifoh said the LP “will also approach the Speaker of the House of Representatives to declare vacant the seats occupied by these former Labour Party members in line with the House Rules. It is inappropriate and unacceptable for these lawmakers to continue to function as representatives of their constituencies illegally”.

“The party has also decided to open a ‘Hall of Shame’ register for these lawmakers or any lawmaker or elected officer of the party who engages in fraudulent acts of defection without first dropping the mandate gotten under the ticket of the party,” he said, adding that the defected “lawmakers will feature prominently in the register”.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives Tajudeen Abbas, on Thursday announced the lawmakers’ defection.

They are Chinedu Okere, Mathew Donatus, Akiba Bassey, and Esosa Iyawe who left the LP based on what they described as an “internal crisis” within the party.