 Governor of Zamfara stayed Bailu Mata while he defected from the People's Democratic Party PDP, so he all progressive congress APC in June 2021, living behind his deputy governor in the PDP. Since then, the PDP has insisted by the reason of his defection that the governor should vacate his office and that the deputy governor should take his place. They have backed this demand with a court action to enforce same. However, the publicity secretary of the People's Democratic Party, Kola Olubudio, has called on the deputy governor to forcefully take over the seat of the governor. In the press release, he berated the Nigeria police for resisting the violence and forceful attempt by the deputy governor to take over the seat. Well, joining us to discuss this is Diron Odeemi. He is the Deputy Publicity Secretary of the People's Democratic Party and James Ibor, who is a legal practitioner. Thank you gentlemen for joining us. Thank you. I'm going to start with you, James, because of course this is a legal matter and everybody is wondering how this is supposedly to play out. But you obviously have assessed this issue. Why do you think the PDP is so insistent on Mata Wali vacating his seat? Honestly, I have reviewed the press statement and it is very strange and it shows desperation on the part of PDP because the position they are pushing is not just illegal, it is criminal because the constitution is very clear about taking over the post of the governor of any state in Nigeria. And I wonder why the PDP as a party will prove such a very flagrant disregard to our constitution by even advising or urging the deputy governor to take over office forcefully. It is strange, it is desperate and very unfortunate. I actually would call itself to order because it cannot, at the stage of our constitutional democracy, begin to advise on a forceful taking over of office. And I must also commend the Nigerian police force for refusing to take that illegal order. Let me ask about the debate and I hope that we can get Darrell back on so we can ask him the same question. The debate about who is voted into power, is it the party, is it the person who is the flag bearer? Because this has been a debate that has gone on for so long. I mean, and we know that during elections what you see on the ballot paper is the logo of the political party and not the person's face. So really on this basis, the PDP does have an argument, don't they? It is the party's platform that brought Bello Matawale into, you know, and we know the circumstances that surrounded Governor Matawale becoming governor because of the disqualification of the APC. So on this basis, looking at it from a legal perspective and not a political perspective, does the PDP not have some form of, do they not have a reason to go to court on this matter? Yes, I think the PDP has a moral debate or argument but not the legal argument. The reason is very clear. If you look at it, it's also the same position when you're talking about PDP in cross-vasted and APC. Governor Ben-Nedi Tayade became a governor under the platform of PDP. Remember, it is not in contention that it is the political parties that is the vehicle to ascending to the office of the governor or president. But that now is standing. The constitution is very clear. In fact, section 180 and 188 and 189, the combined effect of these provisions of the law clearly states on the post-video for season to be a governor or a president. The process is very clear unambiguously and this has also further been confirmed by the Supreme Court. I remember at the time when Artico defected to AC. And there was this running battle between the president because Artico was looking for a platform to challenge his boss in the polls and he defected to AC. And the president declared his position back and it was a legal issue that went up to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court clearly says then and again that it is not known to law that the fact of defection will make you to lose the position you're already occupying either as president or vice president. So in as much as I agree that yes, the position is that of the party but defecting to another party, it is sad. It's unfortunate. The constitution never may be... I think the constitution even contemplated it because if you look at section 68 and section 109 of the constitution, it makes reference to national assembly, the legislative house of the national assembly or the state has this of assembly and it was very expressed that if you defect you lose your seat unless you can show that there is a split in your own political party. So I think it may not even be correct to say the constitution is a lacuna. It is not. It is the intention of the constitution that that provisions only apply to legislative houses of either the national assembly or that of the state, not for governors. Okay, let me go to Duran. Mr. Naomi, you obviously I think we have talked about this briefly when Governor Matawhale initially defected but then the message that you're that Mr. Kola Lobodino had put out asking the deputy to take over, isn't that an illegal you know statement? Again, you have a case that you say you want to take to court and you're going to pursue it to the highest court. But asking that a deputy governor forcefully take over the seat of a governor, isn't that a call for anarchy or trouble in a state? I'm not sure you have the statement made by Kola Lobodino. Oh, I did look at it. If you have the statement, this question will not arrive. Simply because Kola did not make such a statement at all. And there is nothing that if the governor decides to join another political party and the deputy governor decides to stay with the party. And what we are saying as a political party is that since the deputy is used to go with the governor, then the automatically the deputy governor becomes the leader of the party and he should take over the affairs of PPP, nothing more than that. If you have anything contrary, that is if you think what Kola has done is to call for crisis in San Francisco, I think what they should do is just to call the police of you to take him to court. So again, I'm repeating this, if you have the statement of what Kola made, it's not about deputy governor taking over the administration of San Francisco. Let's talk about the well, the courts also has one way or the other stopped the impeachment of the deputy governor, which a lot of political pundits had seen coming. In fact, people predicted that in no time the deputy governor may be impeached. And of course, it also stopped some members who are still with the PDP in the House of Assembly from being impeached. So I'd like to ask you as a party man, why is it so difficult or why is it becoming a norm that if a governor of a state decides to move to one party, every person, whether members of his executive, even the House of Assembly is forced to change to that party. And then there's never really room for the opposition, no matter how minority, how many, how small the number they are, there's always that problem of wanting to impeach them. What does the party manifesto say about that? Oh, the party constitution, I beg your pardon, say about, you know, coexisting as parties, you know, in a state, no matter how small in number the opposition is. Why is there that forceful nature of wanting to get everybody to one side? Sanfara State is a very complex and difficult one. And it is, in fact, a special case, which is why PDP decided to test the matter in the Supreme Court. The situation is, it's because I want the position to PDP and agreed that after the time it was given to PDP, everything was not in existence. That is, it is in no context that relation at all. So if the Matawale now decided to take that mandate to another political party, what we are saying is there is no political party for him to take it, because they were not in that election. And don't forget, we have an elected department in PDP that looked into this and advised that, yes, we have a solid case to contest with. Now, I've been saying that it is a difficult thing if the House of Assembly now decides to repeal the deputy governor, simply because he refused to follow Matawale to APC. Very, very difficult. And the best thing, a responsible party we do is to contact the courts that can be done, and since the court has ruled that they have, the House of Assembly cannot impeach him. So it is. That is the situation. So get about the political aspect of it, but talk about the moral aspect of it. Is it compulsory that everybody must follow you to APC? No. Talking about the morality of it, why is there so much pressure on the governor, but then why is the same amount of pressure not mounted on the members of the House of Assembly where the constitution actually does apply? The issue is, before you can impeach the deputy governor, you must out to your reasoning. You cannot impeach the deputy governor simply because he refused to follow the governor to another political party. And that is the grouse, and that is the issue here. Even if you are telling the House of Assembly decides to impeach him, there's no problem about that, but there must be concrete offence or allegation against the not base of political situation that is yet to be restored at the Supreme Court. Well, unfortunately, we're out of time because I would like to pressure you more on what the PDP plans are in the future. Because if the PDP does not win in court over this matter, what will be your next line of action? We are, our next line of action is to take matter, which we have done already as a political party. And if you do not win? Yeah, it is, it is that we let the court decide. And that is why, because people don't know they are right in this country. If they know they are right, they have a situation whereby you put everything before the court for them to decide whether it is right or wrong. And that is exactly what we are doing as a political party. We don't have to resort to order these, order them to go to the judiciary. Well, Dural Dayemi is the deputy national publicity secretary of the People's Democratic Party. James Ibo is a legal practitioner, and I want to thank you gentlemen for being part of the conversation. We have to go now. Thank you very much. All right. Well, thank you all for staying with us. We'll take a quick break and when we come back, I will give you my take. It's going to be really short. Stay with us. Here's my take. As a member of the fourth estate of the realm in this country, our duty is very simple and straightforward. We are supposed to put our leaders on their toes. We're supposed to report with our fear of favour. We should not be oppressed in any way. And of course, come on. If we live in a country where we're asking that we have freedom of the press or we're asking that the press be unbiased, give them freedom to report and let them give them access to information. We ask questions and some answers never get given to us. We never get those answers. We go to the army for figures. I remember in 2018, 2017, the numbers that were coming from the army was totally different from the numbers. I mean, it was just a misinformation galore. Allow us to do our jobs. NBC, please let us do our jobs. Dear government, allow the media to do its job. If we have good stories to report, we will report them. If the government does great, we will report it. If something bad is going on, we will report it. There has to be reportage. One way or the other, we will play down on the sentiments of trying to make the terrorists look bad, but let us do our job by saying no to God's orders. I am Marianne Cohn. Thank you for watching.