BREAKING: Court Orders APC Senator To Refund Salaries, Allowances Within 14 Days

The Federal High Court in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State has declared the seat of the senator representing Ebonyi South Senatorial zone in the National Assembly, Sonni Ogbuoji vacant for defecting from the party he was elected.

According to the report, the court ordered him to vacate the seat and asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to withdraw the certificate of return issued to him immediately and conduct another fresh election to fill the seat.

The court also ordered the lawmaker to refund all monies to be salaries, allowances or any form of payment he may have received from the position of Senator from the date of his defection to the coffers of government.

Ogbuoji who was elected on the platform of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), defected to All Progressives Congress (APC), to contest for governorship election. 

The Court in 71 pages delivered by Justice Akintola Aluko held that defecting from the party under whose platform he was elected to another party flouted section 68 (1) of the 1999 constitution.

The said section 68 (1) is a member of Senate or House of Representatives will be seated in the House if he is a person whose election to the house was sponsored by 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 the division in the political party, which was previously a member or merger of two or more political parties or factions of which was previously sponsored.

In other words, any lawmaker who defects to another political party when the party under whose platform he was elected was not undergoing any form of crisis or was not part of a merger with two or more political parties shall vacate his seat.

The judgment was in respect of suit number FHC/AI/CS/44/2018 filed by Evo Ogbonnaya Anegu, Oti Ama Ude, Uche Richard Ajali, Una Sunday Okoro
and Simon Ajali Ogbadu for themselves and on behalf of the teaming members of the PDP in Ebonyi South Senatorial District.

They had sued Ogbuoji and the Independent National Electoral Commission (2nd Defendant) asking the court to declare the senator’s seat for defecting the APC when there was no crisis or division in the PDP.

They also prayed to order the 1st defendant (Ogbuoji) to refund all monies may have been paid since January 2018 when he was defected from the PDP to the APC.

The plaintiffs in their postulations through their counsel, Barr Roy Umahi expressed worry that Ogbuoji’s conduct if not condemned and upturned would encourage political prostitution and legislative rascality and destroy the reasons for the laws made to regulate defections of National Assembly members by the constitution.

But Ogbuoji in his defense claimed that he signed his PDP membership and defeated the APC on January 27, 2017 and not January 2018 as claimed by the Applicants.

He noted that the crisis in the party was finally resolved in July 2017 by the Supreme Court but before he had resigned his party to the letter of resignation he submitted to the PDP Secretary of his Ebunwana Ward, one Ukpo Regina Agwu in January 27, 2017.