The Federal High Court in Abuja has struck out a suit seeking an order declaring vacant the seats of 54 National Assembly members who defected from the political parties under which they were elected to other parties.
Some of the prominent legislators targeted by the suit included the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, and former Senate Minority Leader, Godswill Akpabio.
In the judgment delivered on Friday, Justice Okon Abang held that the plaintiff in the suit, the Legal Defence and Assistance Project, LEDAP, lacked the legal standing to institute the suit and therefore the court could not look into the merits of the case.
READ ALSO: Anambra: Police Nab kidnapper of Okonkwo, Warn Against Use Of Unmarked Vehicles
He said that though LEDAP was registered as a corporate body under the Company and Allied Matters Act, it did not have the right to institute the action on behalf of the public.
Abang ruled further that the plaintiff, not being the Independent National Electoral Commission, the political parties from which the legislators defected to the other ones, a member of any of the political parties, a member of the constituencies of the legislators or a registered voters in the lawmakers’ constituencies, it lacked the legal capacity to institute the action.
He also held that LEDAP’s failure to join the Peoples Democratic Party, the All Progressives Congress and the Action Democratic Congress under which platform the legislators contested elections, was injurious to the suit.
