Following the recent wave of cross carpeting among goverors, the House of Representatives is making moves to stop the act once and for all.
As it a result of this, the lawmakers are considering making a president or governor lose their seat if they defect from the political party on whose platform they were elected to another.
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The bill to make this possible was sponsored by a member of the Peoples Democratic Party from Taraba state, Rimamnde Kwewum.
Recall that governors including David Umahi of Ebonyi state, Ben Ayade of Cross River State and Bello Matawalle of Zamfara state, al defected in recent times.
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The bill, which is awaiting second reading by the House, seeks to amend sections 144(1) and 189(1) of the 1999 Constitution “to check incidents of defections, that is, cross-carpetings or abandoning the political party that sponsored a president, vice-president, governor or deputy governor, as the case may be, for another political party, in the absence of a merger of political parties, division or factions within the sponsoring political party.”
Recall that areport, Dagbo Ochiglegoor, a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the House of Representatives, has defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC). Ochiglegoor defected to the ruling party alongside another colleague, Michael Etaba.
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The lawmakers cited an alleged crisis in the PDP in their state as the reason for dumping the party. However, Toby Okechukwu, the deputy minority leader, protested the defections and said there is no crisis in the PDP as they claimed.
Okechukwu argued that Ochiglegoor and Etaba ought to lose their seat for defecting from the party, citing section 68 of the constitution to back his claim.
