The Lagos State executive members, candidates and stakeholders of the Labour Party (LP) have disowned the suspended national publicity secretary of the party, Arabambi Abayomi.
They however reaffirmed their vote of confidence on the national chairman of the party, Barr Julius Abure and other members of the party’s national working committee.
The stakeholders said they have implicit trust in the ability and leadership of Abure and his team to lead the party to victory come 2023, calling on Arabambi to stop trying to distract the party.
A statement signed by secretary of the Labour Party in Lagos State, Chief Sam Okpala, the stakeholders said their attention has been drawn to what they described as orchestrated malicious pronouncements made by Abayomi during his appearance on a national television morning show casting aspersions on the leadership of the party.
“As leaders and stakeholders of the party, we would have ordinarily Ignored the whole lies and misrepresentation of facts in the aforementioned interview but for the purposes of enlightenment and setting the records straight especially for our teaming supporters and unsuspecting public, we wish to make the following clarifications.
“The former national publicity secretary, Arabambi Abayomi, being from the Southwest, was initially charged by the party’s national secretariat of Labour Party led by the national chairman Dr. (Barr) Julius Abure to ensure that the party’s candidates for Senate and house of representatives positions are listed in INEC portal for the forthcoming general elections in 2023.”
“The party did this to allow Arabambi prove his critics wrong that he was/is an agent of the ruling APC to sabotage the labour party in the southwest zone in general and Lagos State in particular as was being suspected at the time.
“Arabambi in the course of this task was given all the necessary support and assistance both financially and materially by the national leadership as well as the Lagos State chapter of the party.
“The Matter in the high Court was so poorly managed and handled by Arabambi and his compromised team, which resulted in the matter being dismissed by the Federal High Court and this development was willfully hidden from the party leadership by Arabambi and his team for reasons only known by them.This poor performance was after Arabambi has collected millions of naira from the party in Lagos State into his personal bank accounts purportedly for legal” fees”and other ancillary expenses in respect of the matter.
“To add salt to injury, Arabambi refused to hand over the matter and the case file to the party’s trusted legal team when the demand was made of him by the national leadership of the party since Arabambi and this team did not make any effort to file an appeal against the judgement of the lower court in any appeal court of the land even as he was aware that the window for doing same was elapsing with obvious implications for the party and her candidates. Anybody could hazard a guess here as to why a self acclaimed”committed” labour party man will exhibit such behavior if not only to satisfy his paymasters at the detriment of the party.
“At this juncture, it became too obvious that Dr Arabambi and his cohorts were leading the party and her candidates to the point where the party will not be able to file in candidates for elective positions in Lagos state aside the presidency, a development which will be injurious to the interest of the party and her presidential candidate, “ the group added.
