The Federal High Court, sitting in Abuja, Friday, struck out a suit
seeking an order declaring vacant the seats of 54 National Assembly
members who defected from the political parties under which they
contested and won the 2015 general polls.
The lawmakers against whom the suit seeking their removal was sought
are: Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, and a former Senate Minority Leader,
Godswill Akpabio.
In its ruling, Justice Okon Abang held that the plaintiff of the
suit, the Legal Defence and Assistance Project, lacked the locus standi
(the legal right) to institute the suit.
He added that LEDAP’s status as a registered corporate body under the
Company and Allied Matters Act was not sufficient to confer the right
to institute the action on behalf of the public.
Abang also affirmed that the plaintiff, not being the Independent
National Electoral Commission, INEC, the political parties from which
the legislators defected to the other ones, a member of any of the
political parties, a member of the constituencies of the legislators or a
registered voter in the lawmakers’ constituencies, lacked the legal
capacity to institute the action.
He declared that despite the noble intention of the plaintiff, its
lack of locus standi to file the action had robbed the court of the
jurisdiction to consider the merit of its claims in the suit.
Besides, the court faulted the plaintiff’s failure to join the
Peoples Democratic Party, the All Progressives Congress and the Action
Democratic Congress which sponsored the elections of the decamping
legislators, stating that this was fatal to the suit.