Controversy Over Labour Party’s 1,234-member Campaign Council

Controversy yesterday trailed the Labour Party (LP’s) release of 1, 234 names for its presidential campaign council.

Some members of the party had earlier debunked a list purported to be the members of the council but a chieftain of the party, Dr Doyin Okupe, who was announced the director-general of the Peter Obi/Yusuf Baba-Ahmed Presidential Campaign unveiled a fresh list of 1,234 members.

While Okupe was appointed the DG of the council, a retired assistant inspector-general of police (AIG), Mohammed Zarewa, was named as the chairman of the campaign organisation.

Clement Ojukwu and Yunusa Tanko were named as secretary and chief spokesperson of the outfit respectively.

The chairman of the party, Julius Abure, was represented at the event by LP secretary, Umar Farouk.

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However, the party’s national publicity secretary, Comrade Arambabi Abayomi, in a message, said, “We are not involved in Dr Okupe’ mischievous political shenanigans.

“That is not the party’s programme. He can’t be talking about our party, our party all the time. Which party? Is he the leader of the Labour Party now to announce himself as the DG? It’s an anomaly.”

Who announced the DG of Atiku? Atiku did it. When Tinubu announced his DG, the party did it.”

“Where is Peter Obi? Okupe doesn’t know what he is doing. I want to be quoted. The DG ought to go to the North East or North Central. We are not a sectional political party. Our presidential candidate is a pan Nigerian. How can we have a presidential candidate from the South and the campaign DG coming from the same South,” Abayomi said.

But Abure said the statement of the publicity secretary did not emanate from the party.

“My attention has been drawn to a short reaction by our National Publicity Secretary, Hon. Arabambi Abayomi while responding to a reporter’s enquiry via Whatsapp wherein he said, “We are not involved in Dr Okupe mischievous political shenanigans.

“Kindly disregard the statement as it does not emanate from the leadership of the party. It is important to let our esteemed friends of the media know that the leadership of the party fully endorsed the media outing of Peter Obi campaign council. The party was fully consulted and was represented by a good number of our National Working Committee (NWC) led by the national secretary,” he said.