There appears to be no end in sight for the crisis bedeviling the Labour Party as supporters of the two faction laying claim to its leadership, continue to engage each other in a war of words.
The dispute was taken a nudge higher when both factions continued their struggle for the control of the National Secretariat, situated in Utako, Abuja, on Wednesday.
It took the intervention of Security operatives including private security guards engaged to secure the building to prevent a verbal altercation from developing into a free for all.
Supporters of the National Chairman, Comrade Julius Abure and members of the National Working Committee loyal to him, arrived the Secretariat for a meeting
and possible screening of Governorship aspirants for Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi elections.
They barely settled down for business when the factional Acting National chairman, Lamidi Apapa arrived with his supporters in tow for the same exercise.
However, they were prevailed upon to step back following the intervention of security operatives.
Soon afterwards, a Spokesperson of Forum of LP State Chairmen, High Chief Rotimi Kehinde, who spoke to journalists after the encounter, explained that they came to conduct screening of governorship aspirants for Bayelsa, Kogi and Imo States but were denied entry into the secretariat.
Rotimi who is Chairman of Kwara State chapter of the party, who is an Abure loyalist said the Apapa -led faction that screened some aspirants on Tuesday, lacked the powers to perform the task.
Stating "I do not know how they manipulated one or two aspirants to come here yesterday (Tuesday).
"We wanted to hold a meeting and we discovered it was under lock and key. We met some DSS men and some vigilante groups...and they said they were told them to lock the secretariat.
"In the course of discussing that, the illegal committee led by Apapa came around and were trying engage us, and their thugs were almost attacking us.
"We resisted every temptation to cause commotion and crisis because we know the case is in court; anything in court you don’t discuss it and we don’t want to commit contempt of court."
The spokesperson who further explained that the matter is already in court, expressed confidence that the court order would soon be vacated.
He said, "when you accuse someone of an offense, especially criminal offense, the person must be heard according to section 36 of the Nigerian constitution.
"In this case, you accuse four principal officers of the party of a very serious offense, but they have not been heard by the court. The next thing we are hearing is they should stop parading themselves as officers of LP.
"We are party chairmen, a very integral part of NEC who have the final authority to rectify any decision taken by the party.
"We have not met and we told them, 'go and wait for the court to decide,' they don’t want to do that, they are taking laws into their hands."
Chairman of Abia State chapter Keecee Igara, who also spoke on the issue accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), of stoking crisis in LP.
Igara alleged that the two parties are using "suspended members of the party to destabilise the party.
"We are talking about taking back Nigeria, if we must take back Nigeria, we must stand on the truth. We must stand on equity and justice."
No comments:
Post a Comment