As the alleged plot to remove Speaker, Kogi State House of Assembly, Prince Mathew Kolawole rages on, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is planning to unseat the likely successor, Hon. Idris Ndako.
Ndako, currently in PDP, has announced his decision to decamp to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). He is being touted as the next Speaker of the House.
However, there are strong indications that the leadership of PDP in Kogi State will stop at nothing to retrieve its mandate back from the lawmaker through the courts in the event that he made good his promise to decamp to APC.
According to an impeccable source, the PDP stakeholders in the state held a meeting at the residence of a former Governor in Abuja over the weekend to deliberate on the rumoured plan of Ndako to dump PDP.
The meeting which lasted for several hours discussed vital issues in respect of the prospect of the party in the coming general elections in the state which includes membership drive and how many big wigs of the party in the state like former House of Assembly members, Local Government Chairmen, Commissioners, women leaders, youth leaders and other prominent members of the party that have defected to the ruling party can be brought back.
According to one of the leaders of the Party from Lokoja who attended the meetings, the party promised to challenge the lawmaker in court if he dare dump the PDP, pointing out that the position of the Electoral Act 2011, as amended, is clear on the conditions that can permit any legislator to defect from the party on whose platform he was elected.
He said since the leadership crisis that rocked PDP is settled and they now have a well structured and defined party leadership, hence there is no lawful reason for Ndako to abandon the party that made him what he is today.
He said Ndako’s mission to defect to the ruling APC is predicated on greed and self-centredness, noting that it is neither in the interest of the people nor that of the party.
He further explained that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lokoja Local Government believes in rotation arrangement that have strengthened the party in the area, pointing out that the lawmaker is kicking against the arrangement that aided his emergence which is why he is planning to run away from the party, forgetting the fact that despite of his inadequacies then, the party still supported him.
“If not for greed, selfishness and inordinate ambition, what is good about the All Progressive Congress (APC) in the country and Alhaji Yahaya Bello led administration in Kogi State that a lawmaker elected on the platform of the PDP will want to join the APC? Is it the hunger, no salaries and maladministration that have become the order of the day? That means Hon. Ndako has concluded plans to join the oppressors to aggravate the pains of the people he claimed to represent.
“That a lawmaker can cross carpet due to verifiable proofs that there are crises within his party, and as today, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has since settled the rift and internal crisis that almost tore the party apart,” the party stalwart posited.
According to the Electoral Act as amended in 2011 by the National Assembly, a lawmaker at any level risk to lose his or her seat if he or she deliberately decided to dump the party that sponsored him or her for the election without any verifiable crisis in his or her former party.
In respect of the Senator, House of Representative members and State Legislators, the 1999 Constitution as amended specifically in section 68(1)(g) and (2) and 109ig) (2) only makes provisions for the tenure of members of the legislature and not that of the executive.
The provisions clearly state that a state or federal lawmakers must vacate his or her seat after defecting to another political party, member of the Senate or House of Representative shall vacate his seat in the House of which he is a member if (g) being a person whose election to the House was sponsored by a political party before the expiration of the period for which that house was elected provided that his membership of the latter political party is not as a result of a division in the political party of which he was previously a member or of a merger of two or more political parties or faction by one of which he was previously sponsored.
While Ndako battles with the constitutional uncertainties, the plot to change the leadership of Kogi House of Assembly is going on unabated.
A source disclosed to Kogireports that lawmakers held an extensive meeting at the Assembly Quarters on Monday to put final touches to the plot. The lawmakers, thereafter, proceeded to the state government house to brief the Governor.
Our source also confirmed that the embattled Speaker has sent text messages to lawmakers that sitting has been adjourned indefinitely.
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