• Abure running LP as personal business -NLC
  • NLC has abandoned its responsibility to Nigerian workers – LP

From Tony Osauzo, Benin

In compliance with the directive of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Edo State Council of the Congress, yesterday, picketed the Secretariat of the State Labour Party (LP), at Ogbelaka Street, off Sakponba Road, Benin City, over alleged financial rascality and contempt of the NLC by the National Chairman of the Labour Party, Julius Abure.

The State Vice Chairman of NLC, Comrade Suleiman Abubakar who led the picketing, said their reason for the exercise was because the National Chairman of the party, Julius Abure, is running the party like his personal business.

Recall that a circular signed by Comrades Titus Amba and Chris Uyot, Chairperson and Secretary of the
NLC Political Commission, respectively, and dated March 19, 2024, directed that all Labour Party state secretariats should be picketed by state councils of the Nigeria Labour Congress following the face-off between the NLC and Abure-led Labour Party.

Comrade Abubakar argued that Labour party belong to NLC and therefore NLC should be carried along in every decision and warned that NLC will not allow Julius Abure impose any candidate on them as the national chairman.

“We were directed across the 36 states of the federation to picket the Labour Party offices across the states. We ought to have done the picketing on Wednesday as directed by the political commission of NLC but because we were unable to mobilize our members.

“The reason is that the National Chairman, Barr Julius Abure is running the party like his personal property. Everybody should be carried along. He has announced the national convention and wants to hand-pick and impose a candidate on us. This is not the time to hand-pick and impose anybody.

“The way forward is for him to go to the national and resolve his difference with the national. He must learn to play by the rule of the game. We are not being sponsored, nobody is sponsoring us”, he explained.

But the State Publicity Secretary of Labour Party, Comrade Sam Uroupa, while reacting to the picketing, said the NLC has abandoned its primary responsibility to Nigerian workers and are chasing shadows while workers are dying of hunger and other challenges facing them.

“The Nigeria Labour Congress has left their primary responsibility. They are supposed to be fighting for the interest of workers for a better living. They have left all these things and they are fighting political party that is not in government. Workers are suffering. Look at the current minimum wage, the cost of food stuff. Today a lot of persons cannot pay transport to their places of work. The NLC is not looking into that but they are fighting political party.

“How many of them are card carrying members of the Labour Party? For you to query what is happening in a political party, you must be a card carrying member and also discharge your financial responsibility to the party. Many of them are in PDP, others are in APC. So, why are they concerned with the events in the Labour Party,” Uroupa queried.