They asked the Federal High Court in Abuja to among others, restrain the AGF, the IGP, DSS and the police from supporting any effort to sack Saraki through means other than that provided for under Section 50(2)(c ) of the Constitution.
Senators Rafiu Adebayo (PDP, Kwara South) and Isa Misau (PDP, Bauchi Central), two of the lawmakers loyal to the President of the senate, Bukola Saraki, have sued the Attorney-General of the Federation, the police, the Department of State Services, the Senate and seven others in order to stop the attempts to remove Saraki.
They asked the Federal High Court in Abuja to among others, restrain the AGF, the IGP, DSS and the police from supporting any effort to sack Saraki through means other than that provided for under Section 50(2)(c ) of the Constitution.
Other defendants in the suit are: the majority and deputy majority leaders of the Senate, the Clerk of the Senate, the Deputy Clerk of the Senate, the Senate President, the Deputy Senate President and the Deputy Minority Leader.
Senators Adebayo and Misau instituted the fresh court action marked FHC/ABJ/CS/872/2018 ) on Monday through a team of lawyers, including former Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) Kanu Agabi (SAN) and Mahmud Magaji (SAN).
The plaintiffs stated that, going by recent occurrences and utterances by some leaders of a faction of All Progressives Congress (APC), from which they had defected, they were convinced of plots to force Saraki off the Senate President’s seat by means other than that provided in Section 50(2)(c ) of the Constitution.
The plaintiffs want the Federal High Court to determine whether in view of the provisions of Section 50(1) (a) and (2) of the 1999 Constitution, Saraki, who defected to another political party as a result of the division in his former party, can be made to vacate his office other than in accordance with Section 50 of the constitution.
Section 50(2) provides: “The President or Deputy President of the Senate or the Speaker or Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives shall vacate his office…. (c) if he is removed from office by a resolution of the Senate or of the House of Representatives, as the case may be, by the votes of not less than two-thirds majority of the members of that House.”
They also want the court to determine whether Saraki can be compelled to vacate his office on the grounds that he is not a member of the political party with a majority of senators in the Senate in view of the combined reading of Section 50 of the constitution and Order 3 Rule 8 of the Senate Standing Orders.
The court was also urged to determine whether the Senate President could be said to have vacated his office by virtue of Section 50(2) of the constitution when he had not ceased to be a member of the Senate or the Senate dissolved.
The plaintiffs are praying the court for, among others, an order restraining the 9th, 10th and 11th defendants, either by themselves, agents, servants, privies by whatsoever name so called from enforcing any act of the 1st, 3rd to 8th defendants purporting to have removed the 2nd defendant from office without such act being in compliance with the provisions of Sections 50(2) of the Constitution of the Fedora! Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended).
No date has been set for the hearing of the suit.