Everything that happens in Akwa Ibom State always has a way of making waves in the media ; little wonder the recent polemical hues and cries following the action of the Speaker of the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly- Elder Sam Ikon declaring vacant the seats of the member representing Urue-Offong/Oruko, Hon. Barr. Bassey Etienam; member representing Uruan, Hon. Kufre Etuk; member representing Ini, Hon. Paul Owo and the member representing Mbo and Chief Whip of AKHA, Hon. Alice Ekpenyong. Whereof the trio of Etienam, Etuk, and Mrs. Ekpenyong decamped to All Progressive Congress (APC) while Paul Owo decamped to Accord Party. In Reaction to this some commentators have argued that the party has not declared these lawmakers not to be members of their party to which effect the speaker was acting on his whims and caprices. Others have argued that the act is very bad since the constituencies which the law makers represent respectively will suffer from non-representation thereby lose out in the devolution of dividends of democracy. It is also the belief of some Akwa Ibom nitpickers that it is only the courts that have the right to declare a law maker’s seat vacant in a democracy. Some have even gone as far as swiping the speaker to be "An Illiterate" for “sacking” four law makers which brings us to the need to look into the virility of our horse sense and our understanding of the laws of our land and the tendency for us to be abacinated by our sentiments in matters of critical state policies.
In addressing the foregoing, let us first examine whether the speaker acted ultra vires to the Constitution or not? The answer to this lies in section 109(1)[g] of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) which provides thus
“A member of a House of Assembly shall vacate his seat in the House if -
being a person whose election to the House of Assembly was sponsored by a political party, he becomes a member of another 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 factions by one of which he was previously sponsored;
The import of this is that the constitution in simple terms provides for the law maker who leaves the party under which he emerged as a lawmaker at the polls to vacate the seat by himself. But the law knowing men to be what they are especially the Nigerian politician and his many shenanigans proceeds in subsection 2 of the same section to empower the Speaker to declare the seat vacant where the person fails to so vacate the seat by providing thus: "The Speaker of the House of Assembly shall give effect to subsection (1) of this section, so however that the Speaker or a member shall first present evidence satisfactory to the House that any of the provisions of that subsection has become applicable in respect of the member."
Now, it is imperative for us to understand the spirit and logic of this law with the help of the celebrated precedence in the judgement of the supreme Court in Amaechi v. Inec & Omehia (2008)1MJSC1. Here the cupreme court very clearly stated among other things that "parties, not individuals contest elections". In essence, it is not individuals but Political parties that win elections. Put differently, people vote for parties, not candidates. After all, the candidates’ names are never found on the ballot papers. More so, going by the provisions of section 106 (D) of the Constitution gives clear provisions which qualifies an individual for election stating that "a person shall be qualified for election as a member of a house of assembly if he is a member of a political party and he is sponsored by that party." In effect, his ticket is tied to that party, where in any instance he parts ways with his root- the party the ladder of his ascendancy is gone and he cannot naturally exist in a vacuum. He must part ways with the office because the legislature comprises a majority and minority divide which balance must not be tempered with without having recourse to the polls from where they emerged. Incidentally, the supreme Court in AG Fed. V. Abubakar (2007)10NWLR(pt.1041)1 throws good light on this when it distinguished between a person elected into an executive office from one elected into the legislature on the peculiar radical declaration of the seat of the Vice President of Nigeria Alh. Atiku Abubakar vacant by Chief Olusegun Aremu Matthew Obasanjo - The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as he then was) stating "it is clear, and unambiguous and that if the lawmakers intended the same punishment in s.109(G),which applies to the state houses of assembly, to apply to the Vice president or president, they would have clearly stipulated so in Section146" sic.
Thus, the speaker in declaring the four seats vacant was carrying out his constitutional duty which should ordinarily be said to be long overdue since the defection took place sometime in early December last year after the PDP primaries where the defectors lost their respective bids. But he could be forgiven by the fact that He had during a plenary that held the week following the defection asked members who have defected to other political parties to inform the house officially by putting it in writing thereby giving them reasonable window to vacate their seats on their honor or affirm their membership with the PDP and in default of both he is justified to declare the seat vacant having sufficient evidence of their defection in the fact that they proceeded to contest for primaries in other parties and/or joined the structure of other parties.
However, one would have expected the lawmakers to be wiser than what they have proven or at least smarter. In this light the best thing they should have done as politicians was to pre-empt the declaration of their seat to be vacant the very moment the cross carpeted by running to the courts seeking justification of the constitutionality or otherwise of their action and restraining the speaker from declaring their seats vacant. This would at least buy them time to carry out their politicking as bona Fide members of the State House of Assembly. This is cheaper than common sense going by their profession. Everybody in Nigeria is witness to the legal cum political histrionics of Hon. Tambura land company and to this extent it is uncommonly surprising for these lawmakers of our legendary state of uncommon transformation to fail to take proper cue. It shows how much of the law they know and how much grasp they have of the political trends in Nigeria. Anyone who should know what the law requires of him should equally know what to do. At least that is what the Speaker has done. For me it's about the first time the elder has done the right thing boldly albeit political or not. Like the venerable erstwhile Lord Chancellor of the King's Bench Adama Cletus Esq. would say "When you encounter somebody you know you can beat you don't need to call God to come and help you beat him but to beat him first and thank God after..." So before we crucify the Speaker let us attend to the traducers and their cross first!
OKPO EWA EDMUND
LAWYER, ARBITRATOR, LITERATI
FCT, ABUJA.
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