Senator Gershoim Bassey, Senate Committee Chairman on Federal Emergency Roads Maintenance Agency has declared the current spate of decamping in the country from one party to another as unconstitutional.
Gershom who is also the chairman of the National Assembly Cross River Caucus said in a situation where one occupies an elected position in a particular political party, such a person should resign from that position as he or she decamps because the constitution only allows cross carpeting where there is serious crisis or division in the party.
Bassey who spoke in an interview made available to journalists in Calabar stated that defections are not healthy and the law does not allow it.
“If you are elected on the platform of one political party, you should leave the mandate when moving to another party. The mandate was given to the party and not to individuals,” he said.
He stated that people just move from one party to another even when there is no division and the problem is that “nobody has gone to court.
He noted that the laws are clear but must be enforced. “There is supposed to be a Supreme Court pronouncement on this but to the best of knowledge so far nothing is before them.”
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On the deplorable Calabar-Itu federal highway, Bassey said “the Calabar-Itu road has been awarded to three different companies; Julius Berger, one of the Chinese companies and recently to Sermatech.”
“The contracts have been awarded and approved by the Federal Executive Council, I expect that the only issue left is for them to release funds to the contractors so that they can go back and start serious work on the road,” he further said.
On when the road will be completed, Bassey said the project is actually under the Ministry of Works and so the timelines will be budgetary timelines
Also commenting on the security situation in the country and the recent EndSARS mayhem, he said, “I think the country needs to support them in terms of funding for equipment, welfare for the men in terms of their salaries and in terms of recruitment because as we know, we are one of the most under-policed countries in the world and right now.”
“I think there is an issue between the Police Commission and the Nigerian Police Force in terms of who should be responsible for recruitment. What we are saying is that we should not be the victims if that raging controversy between the two federal government bodies continues and my hope is that we will get to recruit a lot of policemen and get them trained, properly equipped, and properly paid.
“We also need sufficient and really good equipment for our security agencies for them, to do the work we want them to. The world has moved on; there is cybercrime and all sorts of crime now and so we need to totally equip our police force to enable them to do their work.
“You know I was a victim of the ENDSars mayhem but I know that the state government set up a commission of judicial panel of inquiry but we have not seen the report of that inquiry.”
‘It is important that when we see these inquiries, people will want to know what caused that mayhem so that the matter can be brought to an end. People want to know if it can happen again if Calabar is susceptible to that type of mayhem and the solutions and suggestions on how that kind of thing can be stopped from repeating itself,” he said.
