The Julius Abure-led Labour Party (LP) has called out the Nigeria Labour Congress, (NLC), saying it lacked the power to sack the leadership of the political grouping.
It insisted that the labour centre could not lay claim to ownership let alone void its convention.
The NLC, on Monday, claimed to have voided the national convention that returned Abure as national chairman and members of his National Working Committee (NWC).
To avoid a vacuum, stakeholders said the congress would set up a transition committee to oversee the affairs of the party pending when new officers will be elected in three months.
Present were representative of the chairman, NLC Political Commission, Prof. Theophilus Ndubuaku; the union’s former president, Abdulwahed Omar; chairman, LP Board of Trustees, Sylvester Ejiofor; coordinator of Obidient Movement, Dr. Moses Paul and LP Plateau governorship candidate, Yohana Margif.
Others included the coordinator of Labour Party Patriotic Members Congress, Dr. Kingsley Okundaye; Kaduna LP gubernatorial standard-bearer, Jonathan Asake and representative of Persons with Disability in the party, Ihekwoaba Paul.
Reacting to the pronouncement, publicity secretary of the LP, Obiora Ifoh, in a statement, yesterday, claimed that the NLC “is being used by Ajaero to push for his ambition to contest the presidency in 2027.”
His words: “Ordinarily, we would have ignored the illegal act but for the need to set the records straight, and to prevent genuine democracy-loving Nigerians and supporters of our great party from being misled, we offer a few clarifications.
“The Political Commission of the NLC is a front for Comrade Joe Ajaero, which he has empowered for his political ambition come 2027.
“The group is unknown to the Labour Party, and as such, lacks powers to convene a meeting of ‘stakeholders’ to deliberate, let alone take any decision which will have a binding effect on a legally constituted party leadership.
“The group has been mandated by Ajaero to ensure that crisis in Labour Party festers ahead of 2027, by presenting itself as a rallying ground for dissident former members of our party, who recently lost the leadership battle in the courts.
“We are also not unmindful of the political pact the leadership of the NLC has gone into with the current All Progressives Congress-led Federal Government to destabilise the opposition.”
“This explains why in quick succession, all their plots to hijack the party leadership have failed. First, it was by illegal picketing of the party. When that failed, it attempted to introduce and inaugurate a non-existing Board of Trustees, which also failed. Again, the attempted plot to take over the party using a stakeholders’ meeting, comprising former members, social media tigers and non-members, will fail like a pack of cards.
“If only the drama boys, who gathered on Monday as stakeholders, could open the Labour Party’s constitution which guides the conduct of the party, probably they would have not wasted their time being part of the scantly attended jamboree. Since you cannot build something on nothing, the gathering itself lacks legitimacy, and as such, decisions reached remain an enterprise in futility. They are null, void and of no effect.”
