By Demilade Michael
The Labour Party (LP) has condemned the Wednesday's invasion of its Secretariat by the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), led by Joe Ajaero.
The Labour Party National Publicity Secretary, Dr. Arabambi Abayomi, who said this at a press conference in Abeokuta, Ogun State capital, said the call for the picketing and subsequent invasion and destruction of Labour Party National office by the NLC is illegal, archaic and not in tandem with modern democracy.
While describing the forceful entry of the party secretariat by Ajaero and his cohort, as criminal and illegal, Arabambi called on the Inspector General of Police and the Director General of DSS to arrest Joe Ajaero for treason over his planned political insurrection against the federal government through a conduct likely to cause breach of peace with his call on students, market women and leaders, thugs and other miscreants to invade the 36 states chapter of Labour Party offices which can led to break down of law and order.
He said, "we are now fully prepared to shed our blood in defence of our party leadership, as all unconventional or illegal means to hijack our party leadership, against the rule of law shall be met with force and this is not a threat".
"We shall defend our party leadership from been taking over by NLC political terrorists, we are prepared to dislodged the NLC miscreants from the party national secretariat as nobody has monopoly of violence."
“For anybody to illegally declare himself either as Chairman, Secretary or anything, we urge all workers anywhere in the country, to arrest them and bring them to us.
"Joe Ajaero has penchant for civil disobedience, arrogation of rights and privileges of other citizens to himself because, when a matter is pending before a court and in this case the Supreme Court, all parties are to maintain a status quo as decided by the Court of Appeal".
"Our belief is that if there is any score to settle, NLC should have gone to Court and allow due process to take its course rather than coercing political party to dance to their tunes, as if they were dealing with corporate organization".
"NLC is a movement which by every standard should remain apolitical. There are thousands and one issues that affects Nigerian workers today in which the NLC has failed woefully to fight for.
"The set of NLC leadership as we have today is a failure who put elephant on the head and scratch for rats on the grounds. They have left the mandate in which Nigerian workers elected them to perform and seek their selfish personal needs. No wonder none of their demands is been taking seriously today by the people because we have self centered leaders at the helm of affairs".
"The law is very clear on the formation of Labour Party and those that can be said to be its stakeholders, while we are aware of the Court judgement that said that NLC is part of those that formed the party, the Court does not give outright ownership of Labour Party to the NLC".
"Contrary to NLC claim, the 20th March 2018 judgment by Justice Gabriel Kolawole does not confer ownership of Labour Party on NLC, but gives right to all Nigerians including workers, women, and all strata of the society to be co-owners of the party. So NLC should face the job of labour movement and allow politicians run affairs of politics and if they want to go into politics, let those who have spirit of comradeship takes over the affairs of NLC so that the politicians among NLC executives will leave the stage to those who can truly fight for the course of the masses".
"Labour Party therefore agrees in totality with Nigerians who called for non partisanship of Labour movement that it is best for the leadership of the NLC to be non-partisan.
If they dabble into politics , it erodes their credibility. Once you are in a political party and then fight for the masses, if the people know that they are in bed with a political party. Then you become a partisan voice. So let NLC served by a credible independent voice.
As leadership of Labour Party, we are therefore calling on Ajaero and his co-travellers to leave LP for the politicians who were elected to run it, while he also gave his labour movement mandate.
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