
The Peoples Democratic Party on Wednesday urged the Independent National Electoral Commission to conduct fresh elections in those constituencies in Imo State where PDP state lawmakers defected to the All Progressive Congress (APC).
The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, during a media briefing in Abuja, also said the defected lawmakers had lost their seats according to Nigeria’s constitution.
He said, “It is settled under the 1999 Constitution (as amended), that a legislator who decamps from a party upon which he was elected a member of a legislative house automatically loses his or her membership of that house as the seat belongs to the political party upon which platform the election was won and not the individual.
“The vacation of the seat, as a direct consequence of decamping to another political party other than the party upon which one was elected to occupy a seat in the legislature, is clear and unambiguous under section 109 (1) (g) of the 1999 Constitution