By Perpetua Onuegbu
The Abure-led leadership of the Labour Party (LP) has called on President Bola Tinubu to intervene and stop Gov. Alex Otti from further threatening it’s National Chairman, Mr Julius Abure and other members of
National Working Committee (NWC).
National Secretary, Labour Party, Alhaji Farouk Ibrahim, made known in a statement signed on Tuesday in Abuja.
According to Ibrahim the recent call for the arrest of Abure by the governor has made it necessary to call for the intervention of the president.
“We are condemning this action of the governor who was recently suspended by the party and also seeking the intervention of well meaning Nigerians including President Bola Tinubu to persuade the governor from further threat to our party and the leadership.
“It would be recalled that in the last few months, Dr Otti had ordered the arrest and detention of our National Vice Chairman, Comrade Ceekay Igara, the state chairman, Prince Ndubeze and other leaders for holding a lawful party meeting in Aba.
“His recent threat to arrest Abure and the National Working Committee members for suspending him is one threat too many.
“We are by this statement calling on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to rein in on the governor and to remind him that there is no place for tyranny in a democratic system. We advise Alex Otti to know that the ‘Our Lives Matter’, politics or not.”
The national secretary stressed that in case Governor Otti forgot, NWC provided the platform for him, gave him forms, gave him waivers, supported him and campaigned for him.
“We rejected overtures and several offers which could have ended his ambition. We promoted him, defended his election in the courts until he became the governor.
“After he became the governor, he abandoned the same party leadership and today, he is dragging the party with us.
“It will interest you to know that on his swearing in, he could not even pay for the transportation of a few NWC members that attended the function. That was the day we realised we have entered “one chance” vehicle.
Speaking further Ibrahim said it was governor Otti that emptied his entire cabinet and all elected state Assembly members to Nnewi, Anambra, March 27, 2024, venue of the National Convention to “crown” Abure as the National Chairman of the Labour Party.
“We have repeatedly said that Governor Otti is on a mission to stifle life out of the Labour Party ahead of the 2027 general election before making way to his already known preferred destination.
“If not, why would a governor who has absolute cooperation with the leadership of his party at the centre, suddenly unleash an unnecessary crisis in his own party, where he once called the shots.
“Finally, we want to reiterate that the Supreme Court did not remove Abure as the National Chairman of the Labour Party, neither did it hand over the party to Otti and his cohorts led by Nenadi Usman.
“The Supreme Court’s position was that the matter of leadership in a political party is not justiciable and that no court has the jurisdiction to entertain party leadership matters because it is purely an internal affair of the party.
“The Supreme Court also did not set aside the Court of Appeal judgement of 13 November 2024, which affirmed Mr Abure as the national chairperson of the party,” Ibrahim said.
He therefore appealed to all our estranged members to allow reasons to prevail and to obey the Supreme Court pronouncement on the supremacy of the party. (NAN)
