Defection: Only Tambuwal Can Sack Members – Rep

Edegbe Odemwingie And Adesuwa Tsan

— April 11, 2014

A member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Albert Sam-Tsokwa, has declared that only the Speaker of the House, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, and not the courts, can vacate the seats of the 37 lawmakers that defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The lawmaker further stated that there was the need for northern governors to address the issue of terrorism and herdsmen/farmers clashes.
The Taraba born lawmaker, who is the chairman of the House Committee on Rules and Business, warned that the herdsmen/farmers clashes were a time bomb which if left unchecked, had the tendency to transform into the Boko Haram challenge the country is grappling with.
Tsokwa (PDP), who represents Donga/SSA/Takum/Special Area federal constituency of Taraba State stated this yesterday during a press briefing at the National Assembly.
Reacting to the PDP Governors Forum’s demands for the sack of the defecting lawmakers, Tsokwa said aggrieved persons should approach the courts for a (writ of) mandamus if they felt the law was not being adhered to in the case of the 37 defecting lawmakers.
Tsokwa said, “Let me begin by saying the court is not Father Christmas, a court has no jurisdiction, a court has no right, a court has no power to give what is not asked for.
“Now as to next course of action, the constitution is very clear, that power (to declare seat of any member vacant) is vested in the senate president or the speaker of the House of Representatives, and no other person in Nigeria have that power not even the court. If I am aggrieved that the senate president has not done what  he should have done or the speaker has not done what he should have done the only way we can involve a court is go to the court and ask for an order of mandamus to compel him to do what the law requires him to do”.
He further said, “What we call farmer/grazer conflict is akin to insurgency against the farmer. A grazer is a farmer. The young cultivator is a farmer. Just as I cannot walk up to your land and begin to make heaps because your land is good and I want to plant rice there, a grazer too has no right to walk into my land no matter how conducive for grazing and begin to graze there. If he has no land, I have land. I have no animal. Come, buy my land, give me money and graze there.”
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REF:   http://leadership.ng/news/365293/defection-tambuwal-can-sack-members-rep