Obi, Otti want to hijack party leadership through back door — Labour Party

The Abure-led Labour Party (LP) on Wednesday accused Mr Peter Obi and Dr Alex Otti of seeking to hijack the leadership of the party through the back door.

Mr Obiora Ifoh, National Secretary of the party, said this in a statement he issued in Abuja.

Obi was the party’s flag bearer in the 2023 presidential election where the party finished strongly while Otti won Abia governorship election using the party’s platform.

The outburst by the party’s leadership is the latest in series of crisis that has engulfed the LP in recent times.

A stakeholders meeting held in Umuahia backed Sen. Nenadi Usman as the interim leader of the party after a protracted legal battle between the Abure camp and Lamidi Apapa-led faction.

“For the benefit of hindsight, not a few Nigerians will forget how Labour Party reduced its guards in accommodating some of these leaders when they were denied tickets in their former political parties.

“Many of these men who are holding several political offices but suddenly turned warriors today, seeking the head of Julius Abure to be served on a platter, were rolling on the floors, begging for ticket.

“Labour Party leadership went to the trenches with our presidential candidate, cascading through the nooks and crannies of Nigeria canvassing for votes.

“We were haunted, maligned and in some cases chased around by agents of the state because of our unflinching commitment and uncompromising stand with our Presidential candidate’’, he said.

According to Ifoh, Obi and Otti amongst others want to annex power of the leadership of the party through subterranean means using the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as their launching pad.

“The same LP leadership stood by our then governorship candidate in Abia through thick and thin, snubbing all sorts of pressures, weathering the political and judicial storms to ensure that victory was achieved.

“For these leaders, there are no qualms to leverage on the INEC’s standpoint of illegality to attempt to seize the leadership of the party.

“In as much as we are not saying that Abure or his executive members must remain in office ad infinitum, however we would like to make it clear that this current NWC is a product of a valid convention”, Ifoh said.

Ifoh said being a product of a national convention it would take another convention in 2008 to enthrone a new executive.

“We want to put it on record that the Federal High Court in Abuja presided over by Justice J.K Omotosho had declared that the national convention of the party held in Nnewi on the March 26, 2024 is valid.

“And one conducted in line with the requirement of both the 2022 Electoral Act and Labour Party Constitution.

“The Supreme Court in several judgements had also ruled that issues regarding delegates at a National Convention by a political party are outside the jurisdiction of any Court of the land being internal affairs a party.

“Therefore, not even INEC can de-register Labour Party as being peddled by some of our leaders’’, Ifoh said.