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The leadership crisis in the Labour Party deepens as both Julius Abure and Lamidi Apapa continue to lay claim to the chairmanship of the party despite the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Owerri.
Following the ruling, which invalidated all the off-season governorship primary elections on Thursday, August 2, 2023, Aburi and Apapa insisted they remain the leader of the party.
Speaking at a press conference after the court ruling, Apapa affirmed him as the authentic national chairman of the party.
He said the court sacked Abure and ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to immediately recognise and publish the names of all the governorship candidates produced by his faction for the upcoming governorship elections in Imo, Bayelsa, and Kogi state.
He said, “You will recall that on April 5 the FCT High Court restrained Abure and others from parading themselves as national officers of the party.
“As a result, the party appointed the Deputy National Chairman Alhaji Lamidi Apapa as the acting national chairman of the party pursuant to its constitution.
“Sequel to that, the party under my leadership wrote to INEC changing its date of primary election earlier scheduled by Abure from April 15 to April 16.”
Apapa said Abure conducted primary elections for the three states despite being under a restraining order, while his faction conducted primaries on April 16 for the same governorship election.
“Peeved by the primary conducted by me, a candidate who participated in the Abure primary took my candidate to court whilst maintaining that Abure’s candidates were the authentic ones.”
“The case was frantically defended, and the Federal High court, Owerri Division, declared the primaries conducted by me as the authentic candidate as Abure was under a restraining order as at the time he screened candidates and conducted his primaries,” he said.
Corroborating Apapa’s claim, Monday Mawah, a counsel to the LP, while speaking on Channels Television said the court of appeal in Edo did not affirm Abure as chairman of the party but ruled that his suspension by his ward was illegal.
“What happened a few minutes ago is that the court of appeal in Owerri sitting in Abuja affirmed all the candidates that emerged from the Lamidi Apapa-led primaries in Imo — it includes Imo, Kogi and Bayelsa.” he said.
“What happened in Edo state is not an end to the case of LP and there is more to it. The court just confirmed that.
He added that a trial court had restrained Abure from parading himself as chairman of the party.
However, Obiora Ifoh, spokesperson of the Abure-led NWC of the party has dismissed Mawah’s claims, saying the ruling of the appellate court did not favour the Apapa-led faction of the party as claimed.
“The attention-seeking camp of Lamidi Apapa had earlier today as usual misinformed the public by twisting the clear judgment of the appellate court,”
“It is therefore important to state that neither the Federal High Court Owerri nor the Court of Appeal Owerri, which sat in Abuja today made any orders in the matter other than for lack of locus standi against the plaintiff.
“Consequently, the status quo remains with Senator Athan Achonu as the validly nominated candidate of the Labour Party for the 2023 Imo governorship election,” he said.
Ifoh, therefore, asked party members to dissociate themselves from the Apapa-led group.