When Tambuwal and other carpet crossers shall have been excluded from the House of Representatives by either the remaining officers or members of the house, or attorney General , or the police , or the masses, or all of them; then he and they, if dissatisfied shall file case against PDP and their various parties to determine whether they fall within the proviso to section 68(1). That is when a legal dispute that invokes the jurisdiction of the Courts generally in section 6(6) of the 1999 Constitution and particularly Section 241(4) of the same constitution has occurred The suit which shall be commenced by writ of summons will warrant Tambuwal et al to prove that there was a division in PDP and their respective parties preceding their decampment. The defendant in the contemplated suits will certainly not be the House of Representative. In CHIKE OBI Vs. WAZIRI (1964) when the officer of the federal Parliament located in Lagos, then Capital of Nigeria, excluded Prof Chike Obi from the parliament on the ground that he had resigned his seat, Chike Obi sued the Officer of the Parliament in the High Court of Lagos state. The then Federal Supreme Court upheld a preliminary objection raised by Waziri that Lagos state High Court had no jurisdiction because the issue for determination in such a case was whether Chike Obis seat in the Parliament was vacated and not his exclusion from the Parliament by the officer of the Parliament. And that being the case the proper court that shall determine that is the High Court of Eastern Nigeria. --- The Supreme Court in Alegbe Vs. Oloyo
Posted on: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 04:02:24 +0000