Labour Party crisis: 36 state chairmen storm Abuja, endorse Abure
The 36 state chairmen of the Labour Party (LP) on Friday stormed the Utako District headquarters of the party and forcefully took over the party secretariat amid tight security mounted by the police.
Earlier, the policemen led by Victor Godfrey had taken over the party secretariat and chased out some people clad in black uniforms suspected to be loyal to one of the factions.
However, the chairmen who were conveyed by a Coaster bus with registration number YAB 294 BP, after fruitlessly appealing to the policemen at the locked gate forcefully opened and poured into the premises while chanting solidarity songs.
Three spokespersons namely, the Kwara, Kano and Enugu states chairmen who spoke to newsmen, passed a vote of confidence on Barrister Julius Abure as the authentic national chairman of the party, saying “any attempt to remove him from office must pass through a court of competent jurisdiction or through the National Executive Committee (NEC).”
They stated that the troublemakers in the party, who they named as Abayomi Arabambi (the former national publicity secretary) and the Rivers state chairman, identified as Favour, as well as the former Youth Leader, Anslem Eragbameh, were allegedly compromised to jeopardise Mr. Peter Obi’s petition pending at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.
First to speak was the Chairman of Labour Party, Kwara state Kehinde Rotimi, who said, “We got information an hour ago that some hoodlums have invaded our national secretariat at Utako, destroyed so many property, carted away documents and chased our staff away and committed a lot of atrocities that are not in tandem with the rule of law.
“We heard that they went to court to take a particular order but they did not allow the court to determine the motion on notice, and they took laws into their hands to come and destroy our secretariat.
“That is why we as a very important organ of NEC, the council of Chairmen in the whole country,, which constitute alongside the the National Working Committee of our party, have decided to come to do an on the spot assessment.”
He said further, “And on getting here, we discovered that this set of people, some of them are suspended and are no longer members of the party, some of them have sold the party to other political parties, which the party is still investigating. But to our surprise, they have violated our rights, as a political party.
“We are saying we cannot be intimidated, we cannot be harassed, that LP has come to stay in Nigeria, and we want to advise all political parties to leave us alone. We want to tell security agencies not to be political party members. They should do what is right according to the rule of law. You cannot be a judge in your own case.
“Some of the people causing this problem are being sponsored but Julius Abure remains our Chairman. It is only a court of competent jurisdiction and the National Executive Committee that can remove him, and that cannot be done behind closed doors.”
Also speaking, the Enugu state chairman, Barrister Casmir Uchenna Agbo, said, “What is happening here is very unfortunate because the Labour Party is a party of the rule of law and our principal has maintained that we must be guided by constitutional provisions of this land and the rules of the party.
“It is very unfortunate that those who have managed this party are doing acts of brigandage and criminality. You cannot take laws in your hands.
“In our Constitution, the mechanism of conflict resolution is very clear. In our constitutions, we have to exhaust that mechanism before going to court. And you went to court to obtain an order and you came back to enforce the order by yourselves. It’s really unfortunate.”
The Kano state chairman of the party, Mohammed Abdullahi Raji, also passed a vote of confidence on the embattled national chairman, Barrister Julius Abure.
He condemned the attempt to unlawfully remove the Labour Party’s national chairman “by certain persons who were earlier suspended from the party.”
