Frontline pro-democracy group, the Campaign for Democracy (CD) on Sunday moved against what it described as “mischievous delay tactics” by the House of Representatives, in declaring vacant, the seat of a deceased member.
It said the practice runs contrary to the Electoral Act which prescribes a by-election on or before 90 days after death.
The CD in a statement by its Secretary General, Comrade Ifeanyi Odili, said the House’s delay for seven months before declaring the seat of the late Haruna Maitala from Plateau State vacant, was sheer constitutional abuse.
Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila finally declared Maitala’s Jos North/Bassa Constituency seat of Plateau State vacant last week, seven months after the lawmaker died along with his two sons in an auto crash.
Reacting, the CD in the statement, said, “For the House of Representatives arm of the National Assembly to refuse to declare a seat vacant for as long as seven month after the death if it’s occupant is not only unconstitutional but also criminal.
“The House has no justification whatsoever to, having known that a Reps member is dead and instead choose to keep him or her as a ghost member, refusing to transmit a letter to the INEC (Independent National Electoral Commission) in due course.
“We smell a rat in such an arrangement and we ask that it must stop forthwith or we meet the National Assembly in court,” the CD declared.
The group sneered at an explanation given last September that the House could not declare the late Maisara’s seat vacant, five months after his death, because it was yet to get “proper documentation on his passage”.
The Campaign for Democracy, therefore, warned that such a scnario must not play out in the case of Akure North/South Constituency where its Representatives, Hon Adedayo Omolafe, died on August 16, this year.
According to it, the House cannot afford to stand in the way of the Electoral Act which states that a by-election must take place 90 days after the death of the occupant of a particular seat.
