1 week Ago By Onyekachi Eze
Several factors, including the 2027 presidential election, were responsible for the sack of Julius Abure as National Chairman of Labour Party, by the party’s expanded stakeholders’ meeting last week. The stakeholders, who met in Umuahia, Abia State, last Wednesday, sacked the Abure-led National Working Committee (NWC) and the National Transition Committee (NTC) set up by the Political Commission of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). A 29-member National Caretaker Committee headed by former Minister of Finance, Mrs.
Esther Nenadi Usman, was set up to organise congresses from ward level up to the national convention within 90 days. Abure, who said he was re-elected at a national convention held in Nnewi earlier this year, rejected the suggestion of Abia State Governor, Dr. Alex Otti, to convene a National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting for the dissolution of all executive committees of the party from ward level, to give room for an all-inclusive national convention.
Sunday Telegraph gathered that the Nnewi convention was not only held without consultation but the emergence of national officers ran contrary to the party’s zoning arrangement. Party sources disclosed that Labour Party wants to retain its presidential ticket in 2027 in the South, but the emergence of Abure as national chairman would disrupt the arrangement. “2023, the leadership was already in place before Obi joined the party.
That was why nobody objected why both the national chairman and the presidential candidate came from the same region. “But nobody is going to overlook that in 2027. For a party that wants to win votes in every part of the country to choose its key positions from one region, may not be taken serious,” he said.
It was further gathered that Abure rebuffed suggestions to allow the position of the national chairman to go to the North. “Obi told him to accommodate every interest in the NWC-the Obidient family and the NLC, but he refused. He said Obidient members are not politicians.
That was one of the reasons Obi did not attend the convention,” the source added. According to him, Abure would have survived but by the non-recognition of Labour Party by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). He said the party’s former presidential candidate, Mr.
Peter Obi, had already reached out to people, who were aggrieved to pacify them. “But there is limit to the extent he could go. The INEC issue is beyond him, and if we continue to delay, Labour Party may not field candidates in future elections because the party has no recognised national chairman and national secretary.
“Abure was walked out of INEC meeting with political parties. We were not even allowed to submit names of agents for Edo and Ondo governorship election. The candidates are the ones who are doing it because the law also granted them such power,” he explained.
Otti had told the stakeholders’ meeting that he had studied the Justice Gabriel Kolawole consent judgement of 2018, which extended Abure’s tenure till June this year. He expressed the fears that if the Labour Party under Abure fielded any candidate in inter-party election after his tenure expired last June, all candidates of the party would suffer fate of annulment by court, in favour of opposition parties. He also cited the two occasions where INEC excluded Labour Party from its meetings, and said it was clear indication that the party was in danger of having no recognised lawful leadership by the commission.
But Abure faulted the Umuahia meeting, and said Otti lacked the power to convene such meeting. The source however, said legal views were sought, and said Abure has been stripped of such powers following the expiration of his tenure last June. He disclosed that the committee would soon meet to harmonise its position and write to INEC for recognition.
.
