Peter Obi’s plans to run for president on the platform of the Labour Party (LP) next year appeared shaky yesterday, as a faction of the party threatened to renew its legal battle this week.
Calistus Okafor, former Deputy National Chairman of the LP, hinted at this in an interview in Abuja.
Similarly, Mr. Femi Falana, lawyer to the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC), confirmed yesterday that the case filed by the unions against the late Abdulkadir Abdulsalam leadership of the party, now led by the Julius Abure faction, was still pending in court.
Okafor, the leader of an LP faction, questioned why Obi did not conduct due diligence before allegedly identifying with a faction of the party that the factional national chairman described as the wrong faction.
Obi resigned from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) last week and announced his intention to run for president in the LP faction led by Abure.
However, Okafor told journalists that Obi chose to defect to LP despite being unaware that the party’s leadership had been the subject of litigation since 2018.
Okafor insisted that he was still the party’s legitimate national chairman. He explained that he was appointed as Deputy National Chairman of the party while the late national chairman, Abdulsalam, was in office. He also stated that when Abdulsalam died in 2020, Abure, who is currently leading a faction of the party, was acting National Secretary.
Following Abdulsalam’s death, Okafor claimed that Abure declared himself National Chairman without consulting the party’s constitution. According to him, the LP constitution requires the deputy national chairman to act and/or replace the chairman in the event of death or resignation.
Okafor explained, “The decision of Abure to make himself chairman, with the active collaboration of some members, actually led to the current leadership crisis in the LP.
“I, Calistus Okafor, approached the court to get a pronouncement to force Abure out and the case has been pending.
“The matter will come up tomorrow (today) at the Federal High Court. There is no way we would allow an Acting National Secretary to forcefully take over the party and replace the late national chairman against the provisions of the constitution of the party.
“I also want to confirm to you that apart from the suit I instituted against Abure and his team, the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) are also in court, to claim ownership of the party.”
Okafor urged Obi to tread lightly, emphasizing that the LP, through which he intends to realize his ambition at the moment, is in a deep crisis that may not be resolved before the 2023 presidential election.
He said, “The NLC and the TUC actually registered the Labour Party in 2006, but they were not the ones administering it.
“Peter Obi, at the moment, has been deceived and he is sitting on a keg of gunpowder and it is a pity. He went to wolves in sheep clothing thinking he was discussing with the right people. Staying in the PDP would have been better for him.
“The LP has not done any convention since 2014, after the last one it did in Akure, the Ondo State capital.
“In 2017, after the removal of Abdulsalam as the national chairman, Julius Abure, being the acting national secretary then and myself as the deputy national chairman (South), wrote the Independent National Electoral Commission, to organise a convention for the purpose of electing a new leadership.
“Along the line, Abdulsalam went to the leadership of NLC and TUC, as the people who registered the party, to join him in forcing us out.
“NLC, being smarter than him, demanded a written agreement that he had agreed that the LP actually belonged to the NLC and TUC. He accepted the offer and signed the agreement.”
Okafor further said, “The NLC then approached the court to authenticate the agreement. The court ruled that the organised labour could not run the party but should work with us being the administrators to organise an all-inclusive convention.
“The inability of the party to organise an inclusive convention made it impossible for former Governor Olusegun Mimiko to contest the 2019 presidential election on the platform of the Labour Party.
“It was then that Abure dumped our cause and joined Abdulsalam to organise a National Executive Council congress in Akwanga, Nasarawa State, without carrying other stakeholders along.
“They then notified the INEC that they had elected some people and removed others from the leadership, when they lacked such powers based on the court ruling.
“The crisis lingered until Abdulsalam died and Abure promoted himself to the office of the national chairman, from his position of the acting national secretary.
“Abure is not qualified to hold the position because in hierarchy, we still have two Deputy National Chairmen and six Vice National Chairmen.
“As we speak, I am in court and by Monday (today), I will get an order which I will post on the walls of the LP secretariat and gates.
“Peter Obi should know that there is no way for him in the LP and that even if I, Callistus Okafor, did not go to court and he wins, the structure that produced him would be challenged.
“I expected him to investigate properly before joining LP instead of allowing himself to be messed up by hungry wolves.”
Several attempts to get the reactions of the NLC leadership and Abure through phone calls and text messages were not successful at the time of writing this report.
Meanwhile, Falana confirmed that the case, which the labour unions instituted against the Abdulsalam leadership, now under Abure, was still pending in Court.
Falana said, “The case is still pending in court. The case we have in court is against the Abdulsalam’s leadership.
“That of Okafor could be their own internal affair. We are the people that went to court against Abdulsalam and while the case was pending, they went to do convention in Benin.
“Meanwhile, the court had ruled that parties must have a unity convention and we were not part of it.”
