The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has announced that lawmakers who defect from their political party will lose their seat.

According to NIGERIAN PILOT, INEC Deputy Director of Public Affairs, Nick Dazang, told newsmen yesterday in Abuja that the commission will invoke the relevant sections of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) against lawmakers who defect from the political parties on which platforms they were elected.

Quoting Section 109 (g) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), Dazang said the provision is explicit on ''what happens if one defects from one political party to another''. Section 109 (g) states that a member of the legislature shall vacate his seat in the House if “being a person whose election to the House…was sponsored by a political party, he becomes a member of another political party before the expiration of the period of which that House was elected.” It, however, gives a provision that: “Provided that his membership of the latter political party is not as a result of a division in the political party of which he was previously a member or of a merger of two or more political parties or factions by one of which he was previously sponsored.”