By Tonye Clinton Jaja
Hon. J. I. Ekpenkhio v. Hon. Matthew Egbadon (1962-2001)1 Legislative Law Reports of Nigeria (LLRN) pages 307 to 336, the Supreme Court of Nigeria held that: The Court has a duty to take judicial notice of the record of proceedings of the House of Assembly as stipulated under Section 73 of the Evidence Act”.
In accordance with the above named judgment, it is reasonable to expect that the Supreme Court of Nigeria, would consider the words and actions of Amawhule and the 26 Others on the floor of the Rivers State House of Assembly during the plenary session in December 2023.
According to the Hansard (which is a verbatim report of the proceedings of any legislature), the then Deputy Speaker, Mail, was granted permission by Amawhule to take the floor and then:
“According to a letter signed by Maol and read by Amaewhule, their “defection was necessitated by the division in the PDP, particularly, the tussle around who the National Secretary of the party is”.
This action was followed by public waving of the flag of the All Progressives Congress (APC) by all the 27 Amawhule members, there are photographs and videos to buttress and substantiate this.
Not yet done, at another forum, Amawhule is quoted by the Vanguard newspaper as saying on
December 17, 2023, as follows:
“The factional Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon Martins Chike Amaewhule said the twenty-seven lawmakers decided to defect from the People’s Democratic Party, PDP to the All Progressives Congress, APC because of the crisis rocking the state chapter of the PDP.
Amaewhule also said that they left their former party because President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is doing very well with the appointments of Rivers indigenes into various key positions in his government.
The lawmaker stated that the 4-man group led by Rt. Hon Edison Ehie cannot form a quorum and whatever they are doing in the name of the Assembly is null and void.
Speaking during a dedication service and stakeholders meeting of the APC in Port Harcourt, Rivers State capital on Sunday, Amaewhule said “We begged Mr President, the former president could not attend to the problems of the State, so we begged Mr President (Bola Ahmed Tinubu) that we have a problem. Look at the east west road. The road leading to Ogoni, the president that is not in our party unlike the previous president. The president gave us his words and said go back home irrespective of your party, I am a detribalized Nigerian, that’s what the president told us.
“We defected in line to the provision of the 1999 Constitution, section 109. We didn’t do anything contrary to the constitution. We have evidence that there is crisis in the PDP. We have every right under the constitution to defect.
According to a letter signed by Maol and read by Amaewhule, their “defection was necessitated by the division in the PDP, particularly, the tussle around who the National Secretary of the party is”.
By Dr. Tonye Clinton Jaja,
Executive Director,
Nigerian Law Society (NLS).
