Majority seats: PDP lawmakers serve Abia Assembly pre-action notice

Eleven members of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the Abia State House of Assembly have served the House with a pre-action notice about the majority slots in the Assembly.

The notice, addressed to the Clerk, was signed by the counsel to the PDP elected members, Igwe Ogwo Esq.

In the notice, the PDP lawmakers demanded that they be allowed to produce and occupy the positions of Majority leader, Deputy Majority leader, Chief Whip and Deputy Chief Whip, since they form the majority of members in the State’s parliament.

The document alleged that the Speaker of Abia State House of Assembly disregarded the names of the nominated House of Assembly members of the PDP sent to him by the State Chairman of PDP, Alwell Asiforo Okere but only read out the names allegedly sent to him by the LP.

“This is an utter breach and violation of the extant and crystally clear provisions of Order 8, Rule 42(1), 43(1), and 45(1) of the Harmonized Standing Orders (Rules of the Abia State House of Assembly) and an affront to our democratic tenets, spirit and the law,” the PDP members said.

The aggrieved PDP legislators asked the Abia House of Assembly to revert to the provisions of the harmonized standing Orders which according to the notice, implied that occupant of majority position shall be nominated from the party with the highest number of members.

They notified that a failure of the House to comply with the legal Pre-Action notice would prompt them to invite the honourable Court to interpret the legal import of the Harmonized Standing Orders of the House.

News recalls that the leader of the PDP caucus of the Abia State House of Assembly, Solomon Akpulonu and his colleagues in the PDP, on Tuesday and Wednesday, staged a walkout from the Assembly complex in protest of the alleged refusal of the Assembly leadership to allow the PDP to nominate and produce majority positions.