26th September, 2012
The Action Congressof Nigeria, ACN, has warned of surreptitious moves by the leadership of the Senate and by extension, the ruling People’s Democratic Party, PDP, to declare vacant the seat of Senator Ajayi Boroffice representing Ondo North Senatorial District who recently decamped from the Labour Party to ACN.
A statement issued in Lagos on Wednesday by ACN National Publicity Secretary Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said under the nation’s constitution and laws it is only the courts that can make the declaration that a legislator’s seat has become vacant and warned the David Mark-led Senate to desist from its arm twisting tactics to gain undue political advantage.
According to the party, “Senator Boroffice has violated no provision of the 1999 Constitution as amended or any extant law when it made the decision to dump the Labour Party for the Action Congress of Nigeria and this latest attempt to arm twist and declare Senator Boroffice’s seat vacant came only after months of overt and covert pressure to make him to join the ruling People’s Democratic Party failed.”
The Action Congress while assuring David Mark and his co travelers that it will resist his jack boot manipulations also called on all its members in the Senate to resist and fight this act of illegality and barefaced provocation aimed at destabilising the party ahead of the 20 October Ondo state governorship election.
The party recalled that since the dawn of democratic government some thirteen years ago, the nation has witnessed opposition senators defecting to the ruling PDP without any threat of sanction and vowed to fight within the ambits of the law to ensure that what is good for the goose is also good for the gander.