Edo PDP condemns in the strongest terms, the forceful and barbaric suspension of four PDP members of the House of Assembly. This includes the Deputy Speaker who, by the house rules, can only be removed by a two-thirds majority.
The supposed offence of the legislators is that they dumped the sinking APC party and moved over to the PDP. The indefinite suspension order which was couched in ambiguous language is unprecedented, illegal and an infringement on the rights of the legislators. The precedence, as is currently being exemplified by the PDP over its former members in the National Assembly is to ask a competent court of law to determine whether or not lawmakers should forfeit their mandates when they cross carpet. The courts are still interpreting that question.
Edo PDP too demonstrated this restraint when its legislator representing Esan Central Local Government, Hon. Victor Edoror, defected to the APC earlier in the year. Our party saw it as his right to free choice until the question of ownership of mandate is settled legally.
We call on the leadership of the Edo State House of Assembly to rescind the suspension order in the interest of peace, justice and fairness especially since the suspended legislators had obtained a subsisting injunction from a competent law court forbidding the leadership of the house from declaring their seats vacant.
In the meantime, we urge the affected legislators to be calm as the PDP will do everything possible and within the law to ensure that the blatant injustice and political intolerance are redressed.
We also encourage all House Members intending to come or return to the PDP not to be deterred by the unsustainable and unacceptable action of the APC and its government. The PDP, as is its custom, will defend her own and ensure that no one is victimized for exercising his legal rights within the constitution.
The fear, paranoia, nervousness and feeling of insecurity that the rising membership of the PDP in the House of Assembly is causing the APC is understandably real and evident, but Edo people cannot be allowed to suffer the uncivil consequence of the indiscretion of a rampaging APC resulting from its inability to handle defeat.
Law enforcement agencies, the Police, SSS must as a matter of urgency wade into the impasse before it degenerates into anarchy that can occasion a state-of-emergency in our land because if the use of paid thugs to cause mayhem in and around the Kings Square while the suspension plan was being acted out had been met with equal force from opposition party, there would have been total breakdown of law and order.
