The crisis rocking the Labour Party (LP) worsened on Wednesday as members of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) picketed the national headquarters of the party in Abuja.
The union members led by the acting Chairman of the Political Commission of the NLC, Theophilus Ndubuaku, demanded the immediate resignation of Julius Abure as the national chairman of the party on the grounds that he was not “properly elected as the national chairman of the Labour Party”.
The NLC political commission chairman also claimed that the planned convention of the party under the leadership of Abure is an illegal one.
The NLC has said that the planned convention scheduled to hold in Umuahia, the Abia State capital on March 27, was to be used at re-electing Abure as the sole administrator of the LP, with concerns of secrecy surrounding the event.
The union members chanted songs against Abure, accusing the party’s national chairman of embezzling funds.
However, in a swift reaction, the leadership of the LP decried what it called unlawful break and entry into its national headquarters as a criminal act.
National Publicity Secretary of LP, Obiora Ifoh, said this on Wednesday in a statement in Abuja.
Ifoh said the NLC President, Comrade Joe Ajaero, greed and inordinate ambition have pushed him into losing every sense of discretion and decency in his recent conducts, be it in his affairs with the workers or even the government.
“Ajaero’s continuous claim that NLC owns the Labour Party is not in any way supported by either the Electoral Act or the Constitution. For his information, a political party is owned by those who are card-carrying or financial members of the party.”
“We are aware that more than 90 percent of the members of the NLC have not met this condition and therefore cannot claim to be the owners of the party. The constitution also provides that no organisation can own any other organisation. The NLC as an organisation can therefore not claim the ownership of the Labour Party,” Ifoh said.
He also said issues such as poor workers’ wages, high inflation and insecurity with Nigeria turning to a Hobbesian state, yet after a year of his assumption of office, Ajaero has chosen to ignore all these national challenges.
He said, “It would interest you to know that Ajaero’s NLC is yet to successfully picket any Federal Government establishment. His attempt to extend his rascality to Imo state was met with a higher and brutal force. Unfortunately for us in the Labour Party we do not command any force unlike the NLC that is now encouraging militancy within its ranks.
“By its own constitution, the NLC cannot even call for a picketing of any establishment without a directive of its NEC but what we saw was a political committee acting out an illegal script by Ajaero. The committee has no legal right to call an action in the nature of picketing or breaking and entering into a political party where most of them are not even members.”
Ifoh said the present NLC leadership is politicized and has left its primary responsibilities of defending Nigerian workers by delving into partisan politics and this is a bad omen for the working community.
“We are however reviewing today’s criminal actions and disruption of activities in our national headquarters with our legal department for further actions. What we saw today appears to be a personal vendetta against the national chairman, Julius Abure who they called several unprintable names including labeling him a thief. We are certainly going to take legal action on matters of libel,” Ifoh said.
