The Senate President, Bukola Saraki and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara have described those who went to court, asking that they and others who defected from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), should be sacked from the National Assembly as meddle-some interlopers, busybody and strangers in the matter.Saraki, Dogara and other lawmakers asked the Federal High Court in Abuja to therefore dismiss the suit which was instituted against them and 52 others on account of their defection from their various political parties in 2018.
They claimed that an advocacy body, Legal Defense and Assistant Project (LEDAP) which instituted the suit against them and praying for their removal from the National Assembly had no locus standi to institute the case.
Saraki, Dogara and the 52 national lawmakers averred that the advocacy body was neither a political party nor a voter from their various constituencies and as such has no legal basis to press that their seats be declared vacant.
LEDAP, through its counsel, Jubrin Okutekpa had approached the court praying for an order to declare the seats of the defecting lawmakers vacant on the reason that there was no division in their parties when the defections were made.
The body also asked the court to invoke section 251 of the 1999 constitution to compel the lawmakers to refund all monies collected since the defections.
However, Saraki and the defected senators in their preliminary objection argued by Mahmoud Magaji (SAN), prayed Justice Okon Abang to dismiss the suit of the plaintiff on the grounds that it disclosed no cause of action against them.
Magaji submitted that the advocacy body did not stand for either the All Progressives Congress (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) or any registered political party in the country or claimed to be a voter and as such has no legal status to have filed the case against them.
The senior lawyer, told the court to hold that the advocacy body is a meddle-some interloper, busybody and stranger in the matter.
Magaji further argued that the failure of the plaintiff to join the political parties in the suit was fatal to the case, adding that in all the processes they filed in the court, there was no where they claimed to be acting for any political party, voter or member of their various constituencies where they lawmakers were elected and as such have no power to litigate over the issue or than claiming to be a mere Non-Governmental Organization.
