Court Sacks Cross River Lawmakers For Joining APC

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Twenty members of the Cross River State House of Assembly have been sacked for dumping the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the All Progressive Congress (APC).

Justice Taiwo Taiwo of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, sacked the lawmakers in a ruling on Monday, Ezenwoko’s Blog reports.

The presiding judge ruled that the lawmakers, having abandoned the political party that brought them to power, ought to vacate their seats.

Justice Taiwo, however, ordered the Assembly Speaker and the other lawmakers who defected from the PDP to the APC should immediately vacate their seats.

He held that all salaries and allowances paid to the lawmakers from the period of their defection to the present should be forfeited to the government coffers.

The judgement followed a suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/975/2021, which was filed by the PDP following the defection of the lawmakers and Governor Ben Ayade in 2020.

Recall that a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja had also sacked the Speaker of the Ebonyi State House of Assembly, Hon. Francis Nwifuru.

Justice Inyang Ekwo while delivering his judgement directed the Speaker and other lawmakers who dumped the Peoples Democratic Party in 2020 following the defection of the state Governor, David Umahi to the All Progressives Congress to vacate his seat.

Ekwo also directed that all lawmakers who were elected on the platform of the PDP and defected to APC should vacate their seats.