The Supreme Court has ordered a member representing Akure South/North Federal Constituency of Ondo State at the Nigerian House of Representatives, Ifedayo Abegunde, to vacate his seat for defecting from his original political party to the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), which has not metamorphosed into the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Abegunde, the chairman of the House Committee on Emergency and Disaster Preparedness, had defected from Labour Party, under which he won election to the House of Representatives in 2011, to the ACN.
The legislator defected in 2011. With a threat of being recalled, he filed a case at the Federal High Court against his party and lost.
He also appealed the case and lost, prompting him to head to the Supreme Court.
Delivering judgement in the case on Friday, the seven-man panel of the Supreme Court, led by the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mahmud Mohammed, was unanimous in declaring that the legislator’s reason for defection was not substantive enough.
Abegunde had argued that there was crisis in the Labour Party and that this necessitated his defection, but the court said as at the time of his defection, the Labour Party did not have any crisis or division at the national level, but only at the State level.
Justice Musa Muhammad held that such defection could be excusable with division that makes it impossible or impracticable for the political party to function by virtue of Section 68(1)(g) of the Nigerian Constitution.
Huhuonline.com recalls that the Appeal Court presided over by Justice A. G Mitchel, which sat in Akure, the Ondo State capital had in September 2014 declared the legislator’s seat vacant for defecting from his party.
The court upheld the judgment of the Federal High Court in the state, which had earlier declared Abegunde’s defection from the Labour Party as unlawful.
