Thirteen affected Labour Party (LP) candidates for the Plateau State House of Assembly in the last general election have disassociated themselves from a publication purportedly written by the chairperson of the Labour Party in the state, Grace Zamfara, stating that she is not aware of any court order or court case, denying the interest of the party.
According to a statement by Hon. Henry Yunkwap, Shendam State Constituency, on behalf of the 13 candidates, they argued that the public is aware that there was exclusion of 13 candidates of the Labour Party for the office of the Plateau State House on the ballots by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which led them to approach a Federal High Court in Abuja.
Yunkwap posited that the court of competent jurisdiction granted an order that no election should be conducted in the 13 Plateau State House of Assembly constituencies without the names of the Labour Party candidates and anything short of that renders the election, null and void.
“We have started the enforcement of this judgment against INEC and elections will soon be conducted in those 13 constituencies. It is in line with this that we wrote through our lawyers to both the governor and the speaker of Plateau State House of Assembly to also obey the court judgment by not swearing in those affected by this judgment who are among the 16 affected by the recent judgment delivered by the Appeal Court.
“We therefore wish to clearly state that the state chairperson of the Labour Party (LP) whose actions brought this affliction on the 13 affected Labour Party House of Assembly members should stay out of this issue as her actions will soon be visited by the national leadership of the Labour Party.
“It is now clear to us that her mission to destroy the Labour Party in Plateau State is still unfinished. In view of the above, we hereby wish to inform the members of the public to ignore what the State Party chairperson said as it is now clear that she has commercialised the party. We disassociate ourselves with her.”
