Post-election crisis has hit another opposition party, the Labour Party (LP) over the suspension of its national chairman, Julius Abure, by his local Edo State chapter of the parry.
It will be recalled that the major opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is currently embroiled in a similar crisis, which led to the outster of its national chairman, Senator Iyorchia Ayu, two days ago.
The Labour Party, which is the third largest political party in Nigeria, has also been hit by crisis with the purported suspension of its national chairman by the Edo State chapter.
Abure, who came limelight as National Legal Adviser of the party, later emerged the National Chairman, under whose Peter Obi became the presidential candidate of the party for the 2023 elections.
Under the leadership of Abure, the Labour Party was able to win the Abia gubernatorial election, eight Senatorial and 34 House of Representatives seats with State House of Assembly members.
The national headquarters of the party has said that its attention was called to the press conference held on Friday, March 31, 2023 by by people it called “unknown faces,” assembled in one room in Abuja wherein they pronounced a suspension on Abure.
The party said some spurious allegations were made against Abure which were untrue and concocted by the sponsors of the press conference.
“We, however, deemed it fit to make some responses,” a statement issued by the National Secretary of the Labour Party, Mallam Farouk Umar, said, adding that the young men they saw in the video were apparently not anybody from the Labour Party in Edo State as claimed.
“The executives of the party in the state, Local Government and my ward are well known to the party. None of them were at the press conference. We make bold to say that they are people assembled and rented from some Abuja slums and paid to read a prepared speech given to them.
“Again, our Party Constitution is clear on who can suspend and who cannot suspend the National Chairman. They should go and read the party constitution. It is only the National Convention that can suspend the National chairman of the Labour Party. It also must be through such a convention called for the purpose of the suspension of the National Chairman.
“We think that the sudden suspension was an afterthought of some opposition parties purely to distract the leadership of the Labour Party at this time. There is no reasonable party member at this point in time who will be thinking of such a thing when we are pursuing our presidential mandate in the court and all other mandates including the governorship, Senate and House of Representatives that were brazenly stolen. Who will be contemplating the suspension of any national party official at this point in time. It is on record that for the first time in the history of the party, the Abure led leadership has succeeded to change the political narratives in the country. A party from the blues competing with the top two political parties and in the process, winning eight Senate and 34 House of Representatives as well as numerous House of Assembly seats. We also won a governorship seat while we are in court to retrieve other mandates including the presidency.
“This is certainly not a matter that should be given serious attention by the media. We ordinarily should be talking to our lawyers by now but the fact that you are dealing with faceless individuals who are obviously been sponsored. We are also calling on Nigerians to distance themselves from politicians who take pleasure in maligning political leaders, especially, politicians who are afraid of the rising profile of our National Chairman, Julius Abure,” the party stated.
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