Labour Party: Abure was warned about litigation in party – Ojukwu

From Idu Jude, Abuja

Former national organising secretary of the Labour Party Chief Clement Ojukwu has revealed that the series of litigations against the party after the 2023 general elections was avoidable.

Ojukwu, who is now with the Senator Esther Nenadi Usman-led interim national working committee, noted that the party produced 34 members of the House of Representatives, eight senators, and 80 members of state houses of assembly after the 2023 general elections. “Now we lost all of them. I don’t think we have up to five members in the National Assembly.”

The former national organising secretary, in an interview with Daily Sun, explained that he decided to join the caretaker committee because it is now the legally recognised leadership of the Labour Party.

“I demanded, for the interest of the party, to join hands to work with the caretaker committee to redeem the Labour Party,” he said.

“And I also want to use this opportunity to call on my colleagues at the national level, at the state level, and at the local government level: let us come together and rebuild our party.

“Another election is around the corner. We lost everything we had. They have left for other political parties. So I will call all my colleagues in the other faction to let us come together and rebuild this party.

“The caretaker committee has created a reconciliation committee; let us come together and dialogue so that we can redeem the first opposition political party in Nigeria,” he pleaded.

Ojukwu, who was with the Julius Abure group, said there are no longer factions in the Labour Party, adding, “There is a verdict from the court, and since it is valid, the rightful people are in the seat.”

He called on Abure and others to withdraw the cases filed in court, as they are not helping the party.

“Litigations are killing political parties. We have seen many political parties that are no more because of litigation, and the Labour Party is going down daily,” he regretted.

Ojukwu, who denied that his membership of the Senator Usman-led NWC was a betrayal of the Abure group, described himself as “the oxygen of that particular faction.

“Why I am with this group is because of the verdict. But I never betrayed anybody. Rather, I was betrayed, and I don’t want to go into that now. The best thing now is for all to come together and build what has been destroyed in the past,” he said.