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The President of the Nigerian Labour Congress, Joe Ajaero, has written union leaders to begin mobilising their members in readiness to invade and take over the 36 offices and national secretariat of the Labour Party in Ajaero gave the directive in an internal memo made available to The PUNCH in Abuja on Tuesday.
The NLC president’s directive comes in the wake of Friday’s judgment of the Supreme Court which vacated earlier judgment of the lower courts.
The move is reminiscent of the March 21, 2024 invasion, where aggrieved unionists broke into LP headquarters and other offices, which the National Working Committee said was a deliberate act to steal their sensitive documents and money.
But Ajaero insisted that they could not fold their hands and watch Abure and his team defy the Supreme Court’s pronouncement.
He said, “Just as we warned him about a year ago that Nigerian workers and genuine members of the Labour Party will always collect what belongs to them no matter how long a mischief lasts. By this communication, we urge every worker in Nigeria, all genuine members of the Labour Party and all lovers of democracy, to be on standby to once again peacefully repossess all offices of the Labour Party nationwide.
“The leadership of the NLC Political Commission and other concerned Labour Party stakeholders will issue necessary directives to this effect. We are also putting all the security agencies, especially the Nigeria Police Force and the State Security Service, on notice that they have a constitutional duty to enable and enforce the judgement of the Supreme Court.
“We expect their cooperation as we pursue the rule of law. Any action to the contrary will present our dear country as a banana republic. Nigerian workers and people, especially genuine members of the Labour Party, will not sit back and watch unscrupulous elements desecrate Nigeria’s laws and the well-founded judgement of the Supreme Court.”
Ajaero expressed shock that despite the judgment, Abure and his alleged co-travellers could still be parading themselves as national officers of the party.
To resolve the leadership vacuum in the party, the NLC president said the surviving institutional members of the LP National Executive Committee would appoint an interim leadership to conduct an inclusive National Convention in line with the provisions of the LP Constitution and the consent judgment.
This was even as he demanded the removal of Abure and his loyalists’ names from the portal of the Independent National Electoral Commission.
“Finally, we call on the Independent National Electoral Commission which had always pleaded alignment with the pronouncement of the court of law in the leadership issues in the Labour Party to give full effect to the conclusive judgment of the Supreme Court by removing every insignia of Mr Julius Abure and his National Working Committee from its portals,” the statement added.
Efforts to get the National Publicity Secretary of LP, Obiora Ifoh, were unsuccessful.
However, the National Secretary of the party, Alhaji Umar Farouk told our correspondent they were preparing to issue a statement in response to Ajaero’s threat.
“We will soon issue a statement on it. The threat is nothing new. We are used to their rascality,” he said.
Meanwhile, barely 24 hours after the Julius Abure-led National Executive Committee of the Labour Party threatened to sanction LP presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Peter Obi and Abia State Governor Alex Otti over Wednesday’s meeting, the camps of the duo told The PUNCH that the summit will hold as planned.
The Acting Chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress Political Commission, Prof Theophilus Ndubuaku and Obi’s media aide, Umar Ibrahim disclosed this in two separate phone chats.
The clarifications come in the wake of speculation that Obi and Otti had chickened out following Abure’s threat of sanction.
“Who are those speculating about the nonsense. This is the real theatre of the absurd. If someone was acting this as a Nollywood script, everyone would say this scriptwriter is a foolish and demented scriptwriter.
“Nigerians can innovate the good, the bad and the ugly,” Ndubuaku kicked.
The union leader, however, confirmed that he would be attending the event.
Ibrahim also dispelled the insinuation, saying all the invited stakeholders are ready to storm the venue today.
He said, “It is not true. There is nothing like that. If it was postponed, I would have issued you and other media persons an official statement on that.”
When asked about the threat of sanction on his principal and the governor, the spokesman declined to comment.
“We don’t want any drama with the Labour Party or join issues with members of the party,” he said.
The PUNCH earlier reported that the Abure-led NEC sacked LP Caucus Leader in the House of Representatives, Hon Afam Ogene, from his position over his alleged involvement in anti-party activities.
The NEC also vowed to direct the disciplinary committee to sanction Obi and Otti if they go ahead with their planned stakeholders’ engagement on Wednesday and other activities that may undermine the party.
The development was announced in the communique read to journalists by the Labour Party’s National Secretary, Alhaji Umar Farouk at the end of a NEC meeting held at the party’s National Secretariat In Abuja.
Earlier, both Abure and Obi had simultaneously called for separate meetings of the National Executive Committee to discuss the future of the party following Friday’s judgement by the Supreme Court.
While Abure’s NEC was held at the national headquarters on Monday, Obi and Governor Alex Otti moved their stakeholders’ summit to Wednesday to a yet-to-be-named venue.
The feuding parties made the summons in separate terse statements.
In another dramatic twist on Tuesday, the Labour Party Caucus in the House of Representatives revoked the purported sack of Ogene by the embattled national chairman of the party.
In a statement issued by Mr Ogene on Tuesday on behalf of the caucus, the lawmaker elected on the platform of the Labour Party reminded Abure that it is their duty to name their leader based on personal conviction.
The statement read in part, “The Labour Party legislators have emphasised that the position of a caucus Leader is not an office based on appointment; rather the leader is chosen/elected by peers based on their own conviction of his/her leadership qualities and capacity to speak on their behalf in the overall interest of the party and the people they represent.
“We state this in response to several inquiries from the media and other party faithful arising from developments after the Supreme Court pronouncement sacking the LP Chairman.”
According to them, “On May 6, 2023, a 35-member Labour Party caucus in the 10th Assembly of the House of Representatives elected Hon Afam Ogene as its Leader. Ogene, a ranking member from the 7th Assembly, emerged as the Labour Party leader with 21 votes after a keenly contested election.
“So, it’s only the members of the caucus who overwhelmingly elected him, that have the right to remove him as a leader, not “an authoritarian power-thirsty individual that’s still battling, without much success, to extricate himself from the muddy waters of multiple allegations of malfeasance,” the caucus said in a statement signed by Ogene on Tuesday.
“It is appalling that a man who is yet to account for party finances arising from the 2023 general elections, nor leaves any penny in the party’s account – despite raising hundreds of million naira in sale of forms and other gratifications in several off-season elections – would be so engrossed in wanting to access funds belonging to the House of Representatives caucus, which only points to the depths Abure can go to in search of free funds to fund his new-found lifestyle.”
When contacted for reaction, the National Publicity Secretary of LP, Obiora Ifoh, insisted that the NEC, which is the highest organ in the party, has made its position known.
“However, we are watching the development and will respond at the right time,” Obiora said.
