PDP asks court to sack Dogara over defection to APC

The continued stay of the ex-speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, at the lower chamber is being threatened by the case instituted against him by his former party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The Nation reports that Dogara had on July 26, defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) over an unresolved crisis between him and the governor of the state, Bala Muhammed.

Legit.ng gathered that the PDP, however, asked the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja to sack Dogara for defecting to the APC.

Dogara, who represents Dass, Tafawa Balewa and Bogoro federal constituency of Bauchi state, defected from the APC to the PDP before the last general election where he won re-election to the House on the platform of the latter.

The court documents stated that Dogara on July 24, 2020, abandoned the PDP for the APC when he submitted his resignation letter to the party chairman in Bogoro ‘C’ Ward in Bauchi state.

The PDP and its Bauchi state chairman, Hamza Koshe Akuyam, listed as plaintiffs in the suit, are contending, among others, that by virtue of section 68(1)(g) of the constitution, Dogara ought to vacate the seat for defecting from the party that sponsored him to the ninth National Assembly before the expiration of his tenure.

Akuyam stated, in a supporting affidavit, that there was no crisis or division in the first plaintiff, being the political platform by which the election of the first defendant (Dogara) as a serving member of the National Assembly was sponsored.

He also stated that there were no mergers involving the PDP from which Dogara defected.