The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has insisted that the 25 Rivers State Assembly lawmakers who dumped the party for the All Progressives Congress (APC) have lost their seats.

The PDP in a statement released on Tuesday at the end of an emergency meeting of its National Working Committee (NWC) insisted that there is no remedy for the affected lawmakers and told them to prepare for fresh elections.

The PDP statement which was signed by its Acting National Chairman, Umar Iliya Damagum said by virtue of Section 109 (1)(g) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) the legislators vacated and lost their seats by reason of defection from the PDP, the Party platform upon which they were elected into the House of Assembly.

This is coming barely twenty-four hours after President Bola Tinubu presided over a reconciliatory meeting on the political crisis in Rivers State and part of the resolutions reached was to allow the defectors to return to the Assembly.