BY FESTUS AHON

Ughelli – A warri-BASED lawyer, Dr Akpo Mudiaga-Odje, yesterday,  said the newly elected Speaker of Delta State House of Assembly, Mr Victor Ochei, remains in office by law, contrary to speculations on his status, following a recent Court of Appeal judgment  which voided his election into the state House of Assembly between 2007 and 2011.

Odje, who made the clarification while reacting to media reports on the judgment, said the tenure in contention, 2007 -2011 had since elapsed due to the effluxion of time.

It will be recalled that the Court of Appeal, Abuja, on June 9, 2011 declared Mr. Boniface Isichei as the candidate of the PDP in the 2007 House of Assembly election for Aniocha North Constituency and awarded N50,000 in favour of the plaintiff.  Isichei  had dragged PDP and INEC to court over the conduct of the party’s primaries in 2007.

According to him, “Ochei’s tenure commenced in June 2007 during the first sitting of the Delta State House of Assembly and ended in June 2011 when the maiden session of 2011- 2015 was held, and consequently what the court nullified was an expired mandate leaving the judgment unenforceable and merely academic.

“This position is strengthened by section 105 of the 1999 Constitution as amended, which provides that “a House of Assembly shall stand dissolved at the expiration of a period of four years, commencing from the date of the first sitting of the House.”

He insisted that; “the judgment concerning Ochei was delivered when the four year legislative period in question had constitutionally expired, a scenario that completely rendered the tenure irreversible as a bygone era.”