A former deputy national chairman of the Labour Party, Callistus Okafor, has stated that the continued occupation of the national chairmanship seat of the party by Mr Julius Abure is illegal as no convention elected him.
He berated the planned national convention by the Abure-led National Working Committee of the party, insisting that he must give away to enable the LP strategize and hold an all-inclusive convention to elect new national officers.
Okafor, baring his mind on the pickting of the Labour Party secretariat by the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, spoke on Friday, while appearing on an Arise TV program.
He criticized Abure’s move to secretly hold a convention without elected delegates and conduct of ward, local government and state congresses.
“I must tell you that the last time LP held its convention was in 2014 at Akure. Since then, no convention has been held. Abure knelt down and begged that he should be made a member of the National Working Committee in our 2014 convention. Abure was made Assistant Organizing Secretary. Even in our party constitution, there is no provision for the office of the assistant organizing secretary of the party in our constitution. And due to him begging for office, he was chosen as Labour Party assistant organizing secretary.
“No convention elected Abure as LP national chairman, and the rest. All those parading as NWC members of the Labour Party are sitting on illegality.
“NLC has the power to take their party in the hands. In this memorandum of understanding, they agreed last year that Abure will call stakeholders meeting. But Abure still extended his tenure till now.
“I believe there are some measures that need rascality. Will you agree with me that days before Comrade Ajaero heard about this convention, Abure was in his office to discuss with him. Abure could not tell him about the convention.
“Ajaero is a stakeholder more than Abure. Ajaero is the President of NLC for crying out loud. So, he cannot provoke people to that extent and you go and ask me to sit down, for what,” he said.
Okafor called on Abure to step down further action with the planned LP national convention, and convene an all-inclusive stakeholder’s meeting to be able to agree on a common united front in the decision-making process of the Labour Party.