All Progressives Congress (APC) members in the House of Representatives have urged the party to take necessary steps against their 37 colleagues who defected from it on Tuesday.
Led by the Leader of the House, Rep. Femi Gbajabiamila (APC-Lagos), the members excused themselves from proceedings to brief the media in reaction to the defection announced at plenary.
On the legality of the defection, he said that section 68 of the Constitution had addressed the issue as interpreted by the Supreme Court.
Gbajabiamila said that the Reformed All Progressives Congress (R-APC) did not fall within the interpretation of the apex court.
He recalled a ruling of the court that it was not a person that was elected but the political party.
“Therefore, we would be encouraging the party to take the necessary steps not because we are against our members, but because we can further entrench democracy.
“When people elect you on a particular platform, that seat does not belong to you but to your constituency.
“It is important that this position is stated clearly and that we put it to rest; every four years people are looking for survival and that is very unfortunate,” he said.
Gbajabiamila said that it was sad to lose a member not to mention 37 who were part of the APC family.
He said that the defected members were, however, welcomed back whenever they realised the errors of their ways.
According to him, in spite of the movement of the 37 members, I want to say that APC remains clearly the overwhelming majority in the green chambers.
He commended the rest members of the party who had remained steadfast and committed to the party, saying that is what politics is about.
“We try to build politics of ideology in this country and that is why I commend the members that have remained committed.
“If ideology was entrenched, we will not see the way people are cross-carpeting as we see in Nigeria today. In advance democracies, hardly do you hear of such a thing,” he added.
The leader commended President Muhammadu Buhari and the leadership of the APC for remaining committed to the welfare of the country.
He said that for rightly piloting the affairs of the country in spite of all “nay-sayers’’, the people the party represented remained committed as displayed in Ekiti.
On behalf of all APC members in the house, the leader assured that they would continue to represent their constituents in spite of all the shenanigans going on in the political sphere. (NAN)
