Politics
Labour Party Crisis deepens as Abure dares stakeholders, Obidients
The enlarged stakeholders meeting of the Labour Party held at the Banquet Hall of Abia State Government House in Umuahia, the state capital, on Wednesday, was meant to resolve the lingering leadership crisis in the party and chart a way forward. But Julius Abure, the embattled ‘national chairman’ of the party, who had refused to leave the stage following the end of his tenure in June, has vowed that he is ready to fight on, and threatened to sanction anyone, who stands on his way, including Governor Alex Otti.
Umar Farouk Ibrahim, the party’s secretary under Abure is said to have sent out invitations to members of the National Executive Committee (NEC) loyal to him to attend a crucial meeting, in Abuja, on Monday.
The meeting, it was gathered, is to discuss possible disciplinary measures to be taken against Dr. Otti, among other party leaders.
This is even as Callistus Okafor, a former deputy chairman (south) of the party, who had in July, announced that he had taken over the party, continues to lay claims to its chairmanship, based on a 2018 consent judgment of the Federal High court, which he claimed has not been obeyed.
Many observers, however, argue in light of recent events, that Abure, like Lamidi Apapa before him, is fighting a losing battle by taking on Peter Obi, the party’s presidential candidate in the last election, whose influence brought Labour to national reckoning.
Obi, with his Obidient Movement, remains the key support base of the party, and with practically all elected officials, including its candidates for previous and upcoming elections in one camp, Abure may well be on a wild goose chase.
“One thing the Julius Abure people and the Calistus Okafor people seem to be forgetting is that nobody probably reckoned with Labour Party in the build up to the 2023 presidential election until the Peter Obi effect came into the party,” said Prof. Abiodun Adeniyi, Arise TV analyst and Professor of Communications at Baze University. “He almost became president. This influence is still subsisting. One would have thought that they should be able to build on it instead of this fight.”
Meanwhile, the stakeholders meeting in Umuahia, had in attendance, Mr. Obi, the party’s defacto leader; Dr Otti, governor of Abia State and the party’s only governor; Senator Datti Baba-Ahmed, the vice presidential candidate in the last election; Senator Victor Umeh, senator representing Anambra Central; Olumide Akpata, the party’s governorship candidate for the September 21 election in Edo State; Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivor, the party’s governorship candidate in Lagos, Chijoke Edeoga, the governorship candidate in Enugu; Athan Achonu, his Imo counterpart, and many others.
The caretaker committee meant to ease out Abure, whose continued stay as chairman had continued to be a clog on the wheel as he is not recognized by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), was set up.
Many supporters of the party agree that the meeting was long overdue. Across social media, many leading voices in the Obidient Movement expressed support, insisting that Abure had overstayed his welcome.
“In that Abia city today Labour Party showed it could get its house in order and put aside those putting themselves ahead of the common good and focus squarely on the Nigeria project. Thumbs up to Alex Otti for his leadership and more grease for Dr. Nenadi Usman’s elbows,” said Prof. Pat Utomi, a key member of the Labour Party.
With Abure clinging to power, having held what he purported to be a national convention in Nnewi, Anambra State, where he was ‘reelected,’ Labour Patty, which rose from relative obscurity to mount strong challenge for presidential power in 2023, risked implosion.
During the meeting in Umuahia, the 29-member caretaker committee, chaired by Senator Nenadi Usman, a former Minister of Finance, with Darlington Nwokocha, ex-Senate Minority Whip, as the Secretary, was tasked with resolving the crisis within 90 days, in what was the climax of weeks of consultations among the party’s key stakeholders, Business Hallmark gathered.
INEC had a week after Abure’s Nnewi convention, stated that it neither received notice of it nor was represented at the meeting. For any action concerning the election of party officers, INEC must be notified in writing and also invited to observe it’s conduct. None of this was done by the Abure group in holding the election. The implication being that whatever decision the Abure led NWC took was null and void in the eyes of the electoral body.
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), which formed the party, following from the position of INEC, in early April, announced the sacking of Abure, as the national chairman, voiding his return, as well as other members of his National Working Committee (NWC) at the Nnewi convention.
In a communiqué issued at the end of the NLC Political Commission Stakeholders meeting in Abuja, the NLC passed a vote of no confidence on the purported convention and the leadership that emerged from it.
The communiqué, made available to the press, signed by Prof. Theophilus Ndubuaku, Chairman, NLC Political Commission; Mr Abdulwahed Omar, former President, NLC; Mr S.O.Z. Ejiofor, Chairman, Board of Trustees, Labour Party, among others, approved the constitution of a Transition Committee under the leadership of the NLC Political Commission to manage the affairs of the party in the interim.
But Abure resisted, resulting in a series of clashes between his NWC and the NLC, while Obi, the party’s presidential candidate in the last election, and on whose back, the party rose to prominence, seemed unwilling to engage. The party’s only governor, Dr. Otti also largely stayed out of the picture, as tension mounted.
Kenneth Okonkwo, spokesperson for the Obi campaign, announced recently that he was withdrawing his support for the former Anambra State governor, citing his inability to rein in on Abure. Many supporters of Obi had watched helplessly.
Things, however, got to a head on July 29 when Abure was chased out the INEC organised Quarterly Consultative Meeting of political party leaders at the commission’s headquarters in Abuja, after he attended uninvited.
The consultative meeting, it was gathered, was abruptly disrupted when Abure engaged in a heated confrontation after being walked out, publicly embarrassed and escorted out of the building, a drastic decision taken after several pleas for him to leave proved abortive.
The Quarterly Consultative Meeting is attended by leaders of political parties, specifically, chairman and secretary, but Abure and his self appointed Secretary Umar Farouk were thrown out of the building as they were told they were not sent invites for the meeting because Labour Party did not have any Legal National Working Committee until a Convention is done, as his tenure had elapsed.
Following the July episode, Governor Otti, perhaps fearing inevitable disqualification of the party and its candidates in subsequent elections, swung into action.
“The Supreme Court had pronounced, like we know, that the tenure of that National Working Committee ended in June 2024. The implication is that every action they have taken from that June until the day the matter is decided at the Supreme Court, will be null and void,” Dr. Otti said during the meeting on Wednesday.
“Some of you, who are looking at contesting elections, maybe by then, they’d have done primaries and submitted names. You would discover that you would not be candidates. And I’m not saying something strange. It had happened in Rivers State, it had happened in Zamfara and a few other states,” the Abia governor emphasized.
“There are about five off cycle elections that should happen any moment from now, including that of Anambra Senatorial District, where our brother, Ifeanyi Ubah, unfortunately, left. Because INEC does not recognize the national working committee that existed, if they conducted primaries and selected candidates, they would not list those candidates.”
Recalling the July incident, Dr. Otti said, “A few weeks ago, INEC called a meeting of chairmen of political parties. Barrister Abure went uninvited and they excused him from that meeting. Just last Friday, another meeting held, involving all the political parties and we were not even invited. I also have it on good authority that our party agents for the forthcoming Edo and Ondo governorship elections in November, who were selected by the same committee, that the documents had been trashed. So, as we speak, we do not have agents for that election.
“So, I sat down and I consulted my leader (Obi), and I said we can’t sit down and watch our party go to the dogs. And we consulted lawyers and people, who are vast in INEC matters and in political party matters. We consulted and saw that the best way to do it would be for us, as owners of the party, to sit down and decide. You can be the leader of the party, but when the owners come together and they don’t agree with you, you are gone.
“And I must also say that before this time, I had engaged with the leadership of the National Working Committee, explained all these issues to them. So, for me and for a lot of us that are here, we need to save our party. How do we save our party? We’re not here to dissolve anybody, if your leadership has been rendered impotent, then you do not exist.
So, what we are here to do is to define a way forward. My engagement with people, who know better than I do, is that since INEC does not recognize the leadership, the party should organize an all encompassing congresses, starting from wards, through the local governments to states, which would in turn, lead to a national convention.
“I did tell the people, who are fighting, when they organized a convention in Nnewi; I did ask who the delegates were and how they emerged. And that question has not been answered. So, on the basis of that, it’s very clear that things were not done properly. So, let us not move sheepishly into a hole that we know exists. That is the essence of this meeting.”
Making his own remarks, Obi also noted the meeting was a product of extensive consultations, informed by the need to do the right things.
“We consulted, we discussed. We know what we went through before we arrived at this stage. It’s not as if we just woke and decided to call a meeting. I believe that we have to follow the process. And each time I plead with the governor to do something, he always did. When he says he does what is right, I believe him because I know he consulted,” Obi said.
“What we’re doing is to continue the process of building. We’re not here to dissolve; to suspend or sack anybody. We’re not saying that you are no longer qualified to contest for any position.
“Caretaker committee is just a small committee that will help us to do the right thing, which may just be for a period of 90 or 120 days. We are not trying to set up another leadership, but a system that will solve the problems. We want everyone to come together, we want things to work.”
The stakeholders resolved that the transition committee should conduct the affairs of the party pending the conduct of an all-inclusive and expansive national convention.
According to a communique issued at the end of the meeting and read by Mr. Pwajok Edward, the 29-member caretaker committee were given 90 days to resolve the crisis within the party.
Edward emphasized that the party was concerned that INEC had said the party has no leadership.
“The NEC of the party together with other stakeholders from all over the country came together to look into the vacuum created by the expiration of tenure of the National Working Committee since June 10, 2024,” he said.
“This meeting has resolved to set up a caretaker committee to be headed by Senator Nenadi Usman, with Darlington Nwaokecha as the secretary and seven other members drawn from all over the country.
Abure challenges Obi, Otti, others
After the meeting, Abure, who, alongside the National Secretary, Umar Farouk, and the National Youth Leader, Kennedy Ahanotu, failed to attend, released a statement through Obiora Ifoh, the national publicity secretary, describing it as illegal. The statement stressed that Otti lacked the locus standi to oversee such a crucial meeting as if it was an extension of his state’s activities.
He said, “The so-called meeting in Umuahia is a charade, a waste of time and resources of Abia People. As clearly stated in our previous statement, the Governor of Abia State, Dr Alex Otti, and others, who converged on Umuahia have no power within the party’s constitution, the Electoral Act and even within the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to convene any meeting of the party.
“The premise on which Governor Alex Otti called the meeting is not only faulty but mischievous. The government business is not transacted verbally but through official communication and correspondences, which are done in writing. As we speak, there is no communication whatsoever from INEC to the Party as regards any objection to the conduct of the National Convention.
“We challenge Alex Otti to produce the official letter addressed to him from INEC on the subject matter. There is no vacuum in the leadership of the party. Consequently, the so-called caretaker committee set up by the governor of Abia State is not known to the constitution of the party and can best be described as a department in the Abia State Government House.
Following up on the statement, a visibly enraged Abure held a press conference on Thursday in Abuja during which he vowed to punish any member of the party, who challenged his authority, no matter how highly placed.
Abure argued that it’s not the responsibility of Governor Otti to convene NEC meeting, as that was still his responsibility.
Kaduna LP rejects Usman
Meanwhile, the Labour Party, in Kaduna, the home State of Nenadi Usman, has rejected her emergence of as the party’s National Caretaker chairman.
The state chairman of the party, Auwal Tafoki, in a statement on Friday , described the emergence of Usman, as illegal and unconstitutional, maintaining, like Abure, that Gov Otti lacks legitimacy and is a waste of time and resources.
NLC expresses reservation
Meanwhile, the Political Commission of the NLC on Friday, said it welcomed the formation of the National Caretaker Committee, to manage the affairs of the Labour Party, but expressed some reservations.
Acting Chairman of the Commission, Prof. Theophilus Ndubuaku, in a statement noted that the commission was not consulted before the formation and appointment of members of the caretaker committee, “especially such critical officers as chairman and secretary.”
Ndubuaku noted that the commission started the struggle for the sack of the Abure led NWC, “absolutely with our own resources and virtually without help from our elected and relevant leaders of the political class in the Labour Party.”
He, however, said that even though the commission and its NTC were not consulted, the commission believes that Peter Obi and Alex Otti “are reasonable leaders, who desire the unity, harmony and rancour-free cohesion of the Labour Party.”
He, therefore, demanded that his commission and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) be given the right to ratify the appointment of the chairman and secretary of the caretaker committee, as well as the composition of the remaining proposed 27 members of the committee.
Utomi backs commission
Reacting to the statement by NLC political commission, Prof. Utomi said, “On matters raised by Prof. Ndubuaku and NLC political commissions, I want to express solidarity with the NLC commission. As the one, who chaired the meetings at the NLC negotiating the way forward I recognize their contributions as invaluable. I trust Gov. Otti and the stakeholders will accommodate the TWC appropriately and all can sail forward of one accord.
