{"id":60871,"date":"2022-03-08T18:18:18","date_gmt":"2022-03-08T17:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/?p=60871"},"modified":"2022-03-08T17:09:27","modified_gmt":"2022-03-08T16:09:27","slug":"court-sacks-ebonyi-lawmakers-over-unlawful-defection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/court-sacks-ebonyi-lawmakers-over-unlawful-defection","title":{"rendered":"Court sacks Ebonyi lawmakers over unlawful defection"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. <\/strong><\/span>A Federal High Court in Abuja has sacked lawmakers in Ebonyi State on account of their unlawful defection from the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to the All Progressives Congress, APC.<\/p>\n<p>The court declared their defection unlawful, unconstitutional, null and void and ordered them to immediately vacate their offices.<\/p>\n<p>Justice Inyang Ekwo, in a separate judgment in a suit by the PDP on Tuesday, ordered the Speaker of the House of Assembly and his co-defectors to immediately stop parading themselves as members of Ebonyi State House of Assembly.<\/p>\n<p>He held that the votes that brought them to office belonged to the PDP and that the legislators cannot hold on to the votes having elected to defect from the party that nominated them.<\/p>\n<p>Justice Ekwo also held that the votes cast for PDP in the 2019 election are not transferrable to the APC that failed in the election.<\/p>\n<p>It restrained the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from recognizing or according any recognition to them as elected members of the House of Assembly.<\/p>\n<p>Justice Ekwo ordered that all monies collected from the top period of their defection to the judgment date must be recovered from them.<\/p>\n<p>Details shortly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\">Nigeria<\/a> Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. A Federal High Court in Abuja has sacked lawmakers in Ebonyi State on account of their unlawful defection from the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to the All Progressives Congress, APC. The court declared their defection unlawful, unconstitutional, null and void and ordered them to immediately vacate their offices. Justice Inyang Ekwo, in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":60870,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,28,14,26],"tags":[1570,2140,1578,1590,254],"class_list":["post-60871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-policy","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-nigeria-2","tag-breaking","tag-ebonyi","tag-nigeria"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Court sacks Ebonyi lawmakers over unlawful defection - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A Federal High Court in Abuja has sacked lawmakers in Ebonyi State on account of their unlawful defection from the Peopl ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/court-sacks-ebonyi-lawmakers-over-unlawful-defection\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Court sacks Ebonyi lawmakers over unlawful defection\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A Federal High Court in Abuja has sacked lawmakers in Ebonyi State on account of their unlawful defection from the Peopl ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/court-sacks-ebonyi-lawmakers-over-unlawful-defection\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-03-08T17:18:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2022\/03\/img-62277f9fc1f21.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1138\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"717\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/court-sacks-ebonyi-lawmakers-over-unlawful-defection#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/court-sacks-ebonyi-lawmakers-over-unlawful-defection\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Court sacks Ebonyi lawmakers over unlawful defection\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-03-08T17:18:18+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/court-sacks-ebonyi-lawmakers-over-unlawful-defection\"},\"wordCount\":213,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/court-sacks-ebonyi-lawmakers-over-unlawful-defection#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2022\/03\/img-62277f9fc1f21.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Nigeria\",\"breaking\",\"Ebonyi\",\"Nigeria\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"Policy\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/court-sacks-ebonyi-lawmakers-over-unlawful-defection#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/court-sacks-ebonyi-lawmakers-over-unlawful-defection\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/court-sacks-ebonyi-lawmakers-over-unlawful-defection\",\"name\":\"Court sacks Ebonyi lawmakers over unlawful defection - 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