Niger PDP threatens to sue House of Assembly for declaring seat of defecting member vacant

By Wole Mosadomi

Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP), Niger state has threatened to drag Niger State House of Assembly to court for declaring vacant, the seat of one of its members,(PDP) Alhaji Danladi Iyah vacant who defected from PDP to yet to be announced Party.

Chairman of the Party, Barrister Tanko Beji in a statement he personally signed said if the decision was not reversed within two weeks, it would have no option than to seek redress in the court.

The state chairman of the All Progressives Congress,(APC ), Alhaji Jibrin Imam had forwarded a letter to the state House of Assembly which was read at Plenary at its sitting on Wednesday to declare the seat of Danladi Iyah vacant after he (Iyah) had written to the All Progressives Congress resigning his membership from the party.

The PDP in a swift reaction to the Assembly’s   decision said : “We want to quickly say that the action of the Assembly is not only illegal but outrightly unconstitutional and should not stand.

“The Assembly does not have the power to declare the seat of a member vacant without first investigating the reasons why the legislator took the action he took , worse still, the Assembly did not act on any decision of a court of competent jurisdiction or directive of the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC” Tanko Beji said..

“Acting based on a mere letter from a party chairman is ill advised and an act of legislative recklessness and undue display of legislative rascality and impunity”, he added

The PDP in the statement reminded the lawmakers that the constituents of Alhaji Danladi Iyah   had not taken any constitutional action that should warrant the assembly to take the step it had taken.