PDP Vows Immediate Court Action to Declare Seats of 17 Defected Rivers Lawmakers Vacant, Labels Them ‘Political Puppets’

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) announced its resolve to immediately commence legal proceedings aimed at recovering the mandates of 17 members of the Rivers State House of Assembly who formally defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC). The mass defection, which occurred during a plenary session on Friday, significantly raises the stakes in the prolonged political crisis engulfing the state.

The PDP’s National Publicity Secretary, Comrade Ini Ememobong, issued a strongly worded statement condemning the move, which he referred to as a “re-defection,” noting that the same lawmakers had attempted to defect previously before reversing the decision. He accused the defectors, led by Speaker Rt. Hon. Martin Amaewhule, of being “political puppets” acting on the directives of a “paymaster and demigod.” The statement asserted that the lawmakers had become a “clog in the wheels of democratic progress” and would go down in history as enemies of democracy.

Consequently, Ememobong confirmed that the PDP would activate the relevant section of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution (as amended), which mandates that a legislator must vacate their seat upon defecting from the party that sponsored their election, unless the move is necessitated by a division in the national structure of the original party. While the defectors cited the alleged “intractable crisis” within the PDP as their constitutional justification, the national leadership insists the defection is opportunistic and warrants the judicial declaration of their seats as vacant. The party urged its members in Rivers State to remain resolute as it initiates the legal battle to reclaim its mandate.