LP suspends national treasurer after fraud allegation against chairman

The National Working Committee (NWC) of the Labour Party (LP) has slammed a six-month suspension on its embattled treasurer, Mrs Oluchi Oparah.

The NWC made the announcement at a press conference at the party secretariat on Wednesday in Abuja.

Oparah, however, told Daily Trust that she would challenge the suspension in court, alleging that the NWC’s action was premeditated, especially that those who took the action knew she was not in Abuja to meet the less than 12-hour 10am Wednesday deadline to appear before a panel and that they had also removed her from the WhatsApp platform, hence cannot know what was happening.

She had, on Monday, accused the LP national chairman, Barrister Julius Abure, of mismanaging N3.5 billion raised from the sale of nomination forms and fundraising activities in the build-up to the 2023 general elections.

However, at the Wednesday media briefing, the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Obiora Ifoh, said the party decided to sanction her after she failed to honour an invitation by the party’s NWC to resolve the crisis.

But Oparah told Daily Trust that before she was removed from the NWC’s WhatsApp platform, she had replied that she would honour the invitation, but that there was no flight back to Abuja till 2.30pm on Wednesday, and asked for her invitation to be extended to 4pm the same day.