***‘Your Tenure Ended in June 2023 — Step Aside with Dignity’
***Caretaker Committee Says Verdict Ends an Era of Misinformation
The internal leadership crisis tearing through the Labour Party has reached a critical boiling point as the National Caretaker Committee (NCC) issued a blistering rebuttal to Barrister Julius Abure’s claim to party leadership following the April 6 Supreme Court verdict.
Senator Darlington Nwokocha, Secretary of the NCC, didn’t mince words. In what many are calling a defining moment in the party’s turbulent chapter, he declared:
“The Supreme Court has spoken. Abure’s time is over. No amount of false rhetoric can resurrect a dead tenure.”
The Committee dismissed Abure’s post-judgment briefing—delivered at what it called a “self-styled National Executive Council meeting”—as “misleading, deceptive, and desperate.”
At the heart of the controversy lies the interpretation of the Supreme Court’s decision. While Abure claimed victory, the NCC insists the ruling was a legal coffin for his expired leadership, not a validation of it.
“The apex court did not just set aside the lower court rulings that briefly favoured Abure,” Nwokocha explained, “it returned the matter where it belongs — to the party. And within the party, Abure’s tenure ended in June 2023. Period.”
The Caretaker Committee argues that Abure, after his tenure lapsed, illegally convened a convention in Nnewi—a move not recognized by INEC and unsupported by party structures.
His attempt to secure legitimacy through a technical suit against INEC, the NCC said, amounted to “a legal ambush that the Supreme Court saw through and struck down.”
“The Supreme Court didn’t validate Abure. It dismantled the judicial scaffolding that he built around himself,” Nwokocha said. “Every single relief he sought was dismissed. The party moved on. Only he didn’t.”
The judgment, Nwokocha emphasized, affirmed the party’s internal processes and the legitimacy of the Caretaker Committee constituted by the NEC.
He described the legal saga as one filled with “technical confusion, jurisdictional overreach, and a desperate struggle for political survival.”
In a sharp reminder of institutional integrity, Nwokocha warned:
“The Labour Party is not a one-man fiefdom. It belongs to millions of Nigerians — not one man’s ambition.”
He urged members and the public to await the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the judgment and cautioned against disinformation. Quoting the court’s moral reminder, he concluded:
“A man must be humble enough to leave when his tenure ends. Abure should heed that wisdom.”
While Abure’s camp is yet to respond formally to the Caretaker Committee’s challenge, insiders say the party may now be heading toward a full-blown restructuring ahead of the next convention.
As the battle for Labour Party’s soul intensifies, one thing is clear: the law has spoken, and the tide is no longer in Abure’s favour.