“In my view, such persons who have committed this illegality of defection should return to the party that won the elections. Otherwise, their seats should be declared vacant.”
We have witnessed in the last one year a gale of defections from one political party to another among elected officials.
We have seen it in the Senate, House of Representatives, State Houses of Assembly. Now we are seeing governors and entire government collapsing into another party.
I recall that the former National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Abdullahi Ganduje, welcomed this trend.
I recall that President Tinubu, in his speech on 12 June, 2025 at the National Assembly, applauded this trend and hoped that more governors will cross to APC.
I have also seen some crossing over to the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
I recall that another former chairman of APC, Senator Adams Oshiomhole, openly invited sinners to crossover to APC and become saints.
I sincerely believe that all these defections are illegal, unlawful and illegitimate. The truth is that it is illegal and unlawful for an elected official at any level to defect from a party to the another.
My reasoning is based on a Supreme Court judgment delivered on 25 October, 2007 in a case between Rotimi Amaechi vs INEC, Celestine Omehia and others.
The Supreme Court held that “it is the political party that contests and wins elections, and not the individual candidate.”
In a landmark pronouncement, Justice Katsina-Alu said, “The law is that it is the party that wins the election. A vote for the candidate that wins an election is a vote for the party that sponsored him. In this case, PDP won the election, not Omehia.”
If this is the position of the law, can an elected official deflect to another party, and still retain his position?
The official, as explained by the Supreme Court, is not the one who won the election but the party that sponsored him.
Can the official really stop being a member of the party that sponsored him and still have any claim to be an elected official?
By the Supreme Court ruling, it is clear to me that once an elected official leaves the party won the election, he cannot claim to be an elected official, be it senator, member of House of Representatives, member of of the state House of Assembly, council chairman, governor, or president.
It would appear to me that all those who defected from the political party that sponsored them and therefore the winner have stopped being elected officials.
I believe that true democrats must pursue principles that are of universal application. And, if democracy must survive in this country, elected officials must know they are representatives of an electorate that preferred the party which presented them.
Elected officials are not delegates, that are almost free agents. Elected officials have un-detachable umbilical cords tying them to the parties on the platform of which they were elected. Once they leave the party, they stopped being elected representatives.
In my view, such persons who have committed this illegality of defection should return to the party that won the elections. Otherwise, their seats should be declared vacant.
•Ambassador Farounbi, OON, is a former Nigerian Ambassador to the Philippines.
