Ebonyi House of Assembly declares seats of three PDP members vacant

THE EBONYI State House of Assembly has declared the seats of three members elected under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) vacant.

Speaker of the Ebonyi State House of Assembly Francis Nwifuru read a letter of resignation purported to have been written by the three lawmakers during an emergency sitting on Tuesday.

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The three lawmakers are Victor Aleke (Ebonyi West), Ali Okechukwu (Ishielu North), and Franca Okpo (Abakaliki North).

A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja had in a declaratory judgement on March 8 sacked the Speaker and 15 other lawmakers for defecting from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Aleke, Okechukwu and Okpo and five other PDP lawmakers were absent but all the APC members of the House were in attendance at Tuesday’s sitting where the Speaker, Nwifuru, read the purported resignation letter.

After reading the letter, the Speaker declared the seats of the three lawmakers vacant.

He also ordered the Clerk of the Ebonyi State House of Assembly to write to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) notifying the electoral body of the development and the need to conduct fresh elections in the affected constituencies.