Nigeria’s Rivers State Lawmakers Lose Seats Over Defection

There were new developments Wednesday in the apparent governance crisis in Nigeria’s Rivers State. Twenty-seven members of the state’s 32-member House of Assembly, all members of the governing People’s Democratic Party (PDP), defected this week to the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC). The Nigeria Daily Post newspaper reported Wednesday that the seats of all 27 defecting lawmakers had been declared vacant by the assembly speaker. Also, the Rivers State government began demolishing the entire House of Assembly complex. Joseph Johnson, Rivers State Commissioner for Information, tells VOA’s James Butty, the replacement of the 27 assembly members who defected is in line with constitution and the demolition of the complex had been planned before the political developments.