Like Lamidi Apapa, Vultures Gathering Against Julius Abure, Labour Party Will Fail, By Agho Ighodao

YESTERDAY – in a badly worded letter opening paragraph – signed by Diokpa Delly Ajufo; Zariyi Yusuf, Hon. Keftin Amuga, Dr. Peter Piper, Igwe K.C, Tony Magnifiquedude Asekome, Alhaji Audie Mohammed, Prof Chris Mustapha Nwaokobia Jnr. embraced social media space. The busybody denizens embarked on the frolics for want of relevance, attention seeking, and most of all, destabilizing voyage to reduce the gained made by the Labour Party, Barrister Julius Abure, Mr Peter Obi and the Obidient Movement, worldwide in the last general elections.

The opening paragraph reads: “The past 19 months may have been overwhelming for the Julius Abure led Labour Party. Apparently Abure, the National Working Committee NWC and the National Executive Committee NEC of the Party could not translate the monstrous support of the Nigerian People and the Obidient Movement thanks to the Peter Obi magic into forging a credible election winning machine”.

Aside setting the record straight, it beneath objective, educated and civilized minds to be responding to a bunch of hirelings who referred to the Labour Party and Obidient Movement while the near revolution lasted as “monstrous support of the Nigerian People”. Monstrous? How on earth would a self-respecting group, seeking the repositioning of the party callously draped the universal appeal and support for a new Nigeria on the auspices of the Labour Party monstrous? It is for this reasons the Labour Party leadership has resolved that unknown account should it allow the party to be hijack by dissidents, corrosive and stark illiterates who knew next to nothing about the thankless efforts injected into the nurturing of the party in the the last 22-year by Comrade Barrister Julius Abure and his fellow compatriots.

For the clandestine group’s education, Barrister Julius Abure is the buffer and the bulwark upon which the Labour Party toiled and rolled to victory, regardless of brazen impunity; daylight robbery and the rap of democracy carried out by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the last general elections.

First, one would have expected the self-abnegating group to give credit to the National Chairman of Barrister Comrade Julius Abure who has remained in the party, building and nurturing it over the last 22-year until Mr Peter Obi found it a durable platform to anchor the nation’s ship of redemption and development.

Second, the members of this group who joined the party some 19 months ago, according to their own accounts, have buried their heads in the sand like the ostrich while refusing to acknowledge that under Barrister Julius Abure’s leadership as National Chairman of the party, the Labour Party has become the “Third Force”, with 19 Senators, 35 House of Representatives members and over a hundred House of Assembly Members across the country and a Governor.

The group ignorantly and repeatedly echoed toxic lines of transactional politicking in and around the Labour Party, alienation of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) the Trade Union Congress (TUC) the party elders as the sole reasons for failure in Imo and Bayelsa States just concluded off-season gubernatorial elections without giving specific details.

The group, unfortunately, is trading in a terrain where they knew nothing about. They are unaware that NLC and TUC are at all times involved in the decision making organ of the party and all the activities of the Labour Party. In the case of Imo State Governorship candidate and in many other places which the group made reference to, the NLC and TUC recommended the candidates for the elections.

The other point that was lost on the dabbling and self-seeking group like several others is the arrogation of the Labour Party’s successes outside Barrister Julius Abure in Edo State, without acknowledging the noble rolls he has been playing in the life of the party. First, Abure was State Secretary and proceeded to become the National Secretary before he was finally elected as the National Chairman of the party in Benin Convention. All these times, his challengers and traducers were either in APC or in the PDP, since they admittedly enlisted into the party 19 months ago.

Sadly, the group delved into another controversial topic of a judgment that was in favour of the Labour Party and Comrade Barrister Julius Abure that was entered against the impostor called Lamidi Apapa and his group and the resolution of the NWC. It is in the Nigerian Constitution and the Electoral Laws, as amended that the Nation Working Committee (NWC) of any political party can extend the tenures of the party’s officers where it is not convenient to hold party conventions.

Therefore, we do not expect this group to comprehend a simple and self explanatory High Court, Federal High Court and Supreme Court judgments as well as the NWC resolutions on the subject matters vis-a-vis the affirmation of Julius Abure as the authentic chairman of the party for obvious reasons. Painfully, these renegades and their sponsors are positioning themselves for the off-season gubernatorial election next year in Edo State.

Those who are repeatedly in the business of jumping from one political party after another, haven recently joined the Labour Party after working for opposition political parties but fixated at throwing their illicitly acquired wealth at renegade groups to cry blue murder to crave attention can’t change the place of Barrister Comrade Julius Abure in history. Their tricks aren’t adding up. Nigerians known their enemies.