**Says it cannot allow saboteurs to take over leadership by force
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) on Monday stormed the national headquarters of the Labour Party at Utako in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja to give support the embattled national chairman, Mr. Julius Abure.
NLC’ president, Mr. Joseph Ajaero said workers will not fold their hands for anybody to illegally declare himself either as chairman, secretary or anything in the Labour Party
He urged all workers anywhere in the country to arrest such people and bring them to the congress wherever they see them.
The Labour Party, which is the third largest political party in Nigeria, was hit by crisis with the purported suspension of its national chairman Julius Abure by the Edo State chapter.
3 executives of the party in Edo State, led by the Ward’s Chairman, Martins Osigbemhe, had announced the suspension of the LP national chairman over allegations of forgery, perjury, mismanagement of funds, anti-party activities, among others.
An Abuja High Court had issued an order earlier restraining the National Chairman of the Labour Party, Julius Abure, National Secretary, Farouk Ibrahim and two others from parading themselves as National Officers of the party.
Others stopped from also parading themselves as National Officers are the National Organizi Secretary, Clement Ojukwu and one other.
The order was said to have been issued by Justice Hamza Muazu while ruling on ex-parte application argued by James Onoja, SAN .
However there was a counter Order by the Edo State High Court restraining the Labour Party Executive of Ward 3, Arue Uromi, Edo state from suspending Barrister Julius Abure as the National Chairman of Labour Party
Thereafter, some members of the National Working Committee of the Labour Party (LP) led by the Deputy National Chairman of the party (South) Lamidi Apapa, attempted to take over the party headquarters in Abuja.
The action led to a rival war between group loyal to Julius Abure, the incumbent National Chairman and those loyal to Apapa.
The Apapa led group said they were acting on court judgment restraining Julius Abure and three others from parading themselves as national officers of the party.
Lamidi declared himself as the Acting National Chairman of the party while Saleh Lawan said he is the Acting National Secretary.
Addressing workers and journalists who accompanied them to the party office, the NLC president said the labour movement will resist any plot to derail Labour Party, especially now that it is enjoying wide acceptance by Nigerians.
The NLC team leader said that under no circumstances will they allow anyone to derail the party they worked hard to recover from impostors.
“Today, we say enough is enough. Never again will any human being enter here under any guise, under any order. Even if we lose our leadership, we have to meet as trustees of this party to decide the next line of action.
“For anybody to illegally declare himself either as chairman, secretary or anything, we urge all workers anywhere in the country, where you see such people, arrest them them and bring them to us.
“The hour has come. The Bible says, “from the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of God sufferreth violence. And violence taketh by voice. Now we have come to take our party, we have come to establish our party. As the fastest growing party, you can see that envy and jealousy is crippling in. The people that are pioneering this to sabotage us let’s announce here that we know your fathers.
“If you continue this way, we will go after your fathers. We leave it here until we finish our private discussion. Let it be known to the whole world that the NLC fathered LP and we will not abandon our child,” he said.
Ajaero said that NLC’ decided to visit the party headquarters to fish out intruders that want to usurp the leadership of Labour Party.
“For sometime now, we have not been visiting our house we decided to visit our house this afternoon after getting some information that there are some rodents trying to move into our house and we have come with some insecticide to fumigate the house from any rodents that is illegally trying to enter our property.
“So that is why we are here, incidentally, we didn’t see any rodents but we will comb around and see whether there is any. The LP is a child of circumstances. It began, when we lost almost all confidence in the existing political parties. And we felt that the LP will be the ideal political party that will represent our ideological persuasions.
“In the other hand, thy was why the LP was formed. For anybody or group of think that they can sabotage or derail our ideological move, we will resist them with the last drop of our blood. This was formed by the NLC and TUC. This is our party. Nobody can come from the blues and declare himself as the chairman or secretary of our party without our consent.
“It is not done. Such people, if they attempt to come here next time, all their property, all their houses, their residential houses we will occupy it where ever it is located. Then they will know that all that they have was given to them by Labour,” he said .
The leadership of LP later went into close door meeting with the NLC’ delegation.