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The Labour Party National Chairman, Julius Abure, has apologised to supporters and sympathisers of the party for creating a window for those he described as charlatans and dubious people to infiltrate their fold.
It'd be recalled that the Labour Party on whose platform Peter Obi contested the 2023 presidential election, has been embroiled in a tussle over the leadership of the party.
The development has not gone down well with supporters of Obi, otherwise referred to as Obidients, who believed the crisis was engineered to jeopardise the party's chances at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT).
Abure's leadership is being challenged by a factional National Chairman of the Labour Party, Lamidi Apapa, who took over the reins of the party immediately after an Abuja High Court ordered Abure to stop parading himself as the national chairman following suspension imposed on him by his Ward in Edo State over alleged anti-party activities.
However, the embattled National Chairman has now admitted that errors were committed in the party's quest to grow its membership in the build-up to the 2023 elections.
He disclosed this while receiving a coalition of party supporters and civil society groups at the party’s National Secretariat, in Abuja, on Friday, May 12, 2023.
He rued the fact that those set of people hurriedly recruited into the party are now the ones making themselves available as willing tools in the hands of enemies who are determined to throw the party into chaos.
Abure said, “The party was a small party and because we want to have numbers, we accommodated all forms of charlatans and dubious people into the party.
“These are people who didn’t offer anything to the party. Apapa scored zero in Oyo state in the Presidential election. Arabambi who is claiming to be the Publicity Secretary scored zero in Ogun state in the presidential election.
“They even supported other candidates from other parties. In Edo, I scored 79 per cent of the votes in the presidential election. I ensured that APC and PDP did not get 25 per cent in that election.”
Pulse reports that Apapa had claimed to be the substantive Labour Party National Chairman following an Abuja High Court ruling on Friday, prompting him to summon lawyers representing the party at the PEPT to furnish him with details of proceedings within 48 hours.
But explaining what transpired in court on Friday, Abure said, “We have obeyed the court restraining order and by today, the court gave a ruling, assuming jurisdiction.
“I need to make it abundantly clear that the substantive matter has not started. There was a preliminary objection to the jurisdiction of the court and the court today assumed jurisdiction.
“And for me, I am ready to go for an appeal. In the next few hours, we will be submitting our notice of appeal to the court and we will move all the matter from that court and take it to the court of Appeal.
“I believe that I will get justice in the Court of Appeal. I believe that Labour Party will get justice in the Court of Appeal. Because this same court in FCT in 2023 in the case of Sulieman v APC did the same thing and the Law Report decided by the Supreme Court made it very clear that the court has no jurisdiction over such matter.
“That is where we are standing and we believe that whatever the court has said today can’t stand before the Court of Appeal.
“I believe that the Court of Appeal will do the right thing and therefore all our papers will be filed today and by Monday the appeal will commence.
“And so I want to assure all our supporters, all our members that they should remain calm, I remain the National Chairman of the Labour Party.”