The Labour Party’s (LP) leadership crisis escalated further yesterday, May 3, with the Julius Abure and Lamidi Apapa groups holding separate National National Working Committee (NWC) meetings in Abuja and Bauchi, respectively.
Politics Nigeria gathered that at the Abuja meeting, the Abure group warned that any elected member of the LP found to be in support of Apapa risked having his seat declared vacant. It added that other members that lend their loyalty to the suspended National Chairman(South) could be axed from the party.
It was a different situation at the Bauchi NEC meeting, the Apapa group announced that it had pardoned LP’s Presidential candidate for the February 25 election, Peter Obi and his running-mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed for attending last month’s meeting of the NEC in Asaba, Delta State.
The LP leadership crisis broke out when the Federal High Court in Abuja barred the National Chairman (Abure) and three others from parading themselves as national officers of the party.
Apapa assumed the role of Acting Chairman, pending when the order of the court would be vacated. The Abure – led NWC, however, refused to recognise the leadership of Apapa
At the Abuja NEC parley yesterday, LP’s Deputy National Chairman Ladi Illiya, described the Bauchi meeting as fake and unconstitutional.
Illiya added that those behind the “contrived leadership rumblings” within the LP did not wish it well.
He said: “Those who are gathering in Bauchi in an attempt to hold a fake and unconstitutional National Executive Council(NEC) meeting do not represent our party.
“We held our authentic constitutionally approved NEC meeting in Asaba, Delta State about two weeks ago. At the meeting, we had all the state chairmen and secretaries from the 36 states as well as the Abuja chairman and secretary in attendance. , Who then are the NEC members in Bauchi?
