The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has reacted to the directive by Nigeria’s attorney-general (AGF), Abubakar Malami, to the inspector-general of police to provide security for some Edo State House of Assembly members-elect, saying it was “thoughtless, unconstitutional, null and void.”

The party said the police chief has no obligation to heed such illegal directive, asking him to disregard it.

The party, at a press briefing, by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, noted that “nothing in Sections 90, 91, 101 and 104 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) cited by the Attorney General, empowers him to go to the streets of any part of the nation to assemble some clowns and declare them members-elect of any House of Assembly, without any electoral mandate.”

The PDP said these individuals have been absent for 180 days, abandoning their mandate and their seats declared vacant in line with the rules of the legislature and the laws of the federation.

“It is trite in law that with their seats having been declared vacant by the House, they have consequently lost their membership and respective mandates,” Ologbondiyan said.

The party further stated that the Attorney General ought to have availed himself of the facts that the state House of Assembly, as constitutionally constituted, had written to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), asking it to conduct fresh elections into the vacant seats in line with the provisions of the Constitution and the Electoral Act…”

“If the AGF had bothered to get his facts correctly before issuing the unconstitutional warrant for the Gestapo operation to the IGP, he would have known that the matter of the declaration of the seats of the errant individuals and the request for the conduct of fresh elections to fill the vacant seats are pending in competent court in Edo State at the instance of his ........
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https://judicialsketch.com/2020/08/09/pdp-claims-malamis-request-on-edo-house-members-elect-was-thoughtless/