BY ABIODUN NEJO
Former National Assembly member and All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain, Senator Ayo Arise, has urged leadership of the party to begin moves that will ensure federal lawmakers who defected from the party lose their seats.
Arise, who said that there was no division or factions in the party that could warrant the defection of the National Assembly members who dumped APC, advising the party to move against all the defectors.
The former lawmaker advised that the latest trend of defections in the national and state assemblies, which he described as immoral, where people took mandate of voters to another party, must be put to an end
It will be recalled that the Senate President Bukola Saraki, former Kano State Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso and other high profile members of the party from the National Assembly defected from ruling APC to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
He advised APC National Executive Committee (NEC) to approach the Supreme Court and remove all the Senators and House of Representatives members that defected, saying the nation could not survive if the trend was not put in check.
He said: “My position on this is that we can’t continue in this manner as a nation because what is wrong is wrong. I am of the opinion that when you are voted in on a particular platform and you move away from that platform, the individual should lose the privileges because the party is supreme to individuals.
“These people that had moved should be ready to drop their seats and go for a new election. As for me, there is no excuse, drama or smart moves that will justify anyone who was voted in from a particular party to move and still enjoy all the privileges of that party without the consent of people that voted for you. In any way you look at it, it can never be right.
Arise urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to get set in conducting elections to replace those who left the party, noting that none of them, including the Senate President, had the right to continue with the seat.
“Saraki should not only drop the Senate Presidency, but he should lose the seat. He not have any right to continue with that seat and I want to urge INEC to conduct new election for those that defected”, Arise said