March 17, (THEWILL) – A Calabar based legal expert, Joseph Oloko, has affirmed that socketing to the centre is not a legal reason for defection.
Oloko disclosed this in an interview in Calabar with THEWILL while reacting to the recent court order in defection in the country.
The legal expert also hailed the Abuja Federal High Court Judgement delivered by Justice Inyang Ekwo.
He affirmed that the judge got it totally right and the judgement is sacrosanct.
In his words, “Socketing to the centre is not a legal reason for defection.
“When you want to defect as a legislator, the provision of Section 109 of the constitution comes to play.
“It tells you how you must defect. For it to be successful, there must be division at the national level of your party.
“At the time they defected, the PDP was a very peaceful party without division and the national chairman, Uche Secondus, was doing well.
“When they defected, they said they were socketing to the centre, but socketing to the centre is not one of the conditions listed in Section 109 for defecting”, he said.
On the recent Federal High Court Judgement, he said ” It is clear that the decision of Justice Ekwo is very sacrosanct.
“People talk about Section 308, which gives immunity and refer to Atiku Abubakar’s case, but I want to say how was the immunity derived. What generated that immunity is it not the election?, He queried.
He also explained that the PDP as a party has several thousands of people, and even though one may be the leader of the party, his right is not different from that of any other member of the party.
THEWILL Correspondent, Aniekan Bassey has over six years experience that spans across several fields in print journalism including development communication, sexual reproductive and health rights issues, crime, climate change, social justice, business and human interest stories.
