LP Crisis: Join Apapa, Lose Your Seat, Party Threatens Elected Officials, Members

The Labour Party (LP) has threatened to sack any of its elected officials and members who join the suspended National Vice Chairman, Lamidi Apapa and his group.

Apapa and some other suspended and expelled members of the party had convened a National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting in Bauchi State on Wednesday and invited the presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi and other NEC members.

But the Deputy National Chairman, Mrs Ladi Iliya, at a press conference in Abuja threatened that “Whoever we find dining with these people will lose their seat.”

Mrs. Iliya who dubbed the Bauchi NEC meeting by Apapa and his group as illegal, said there is no faction in the LP.

“Labour Party is one and we are united. If people who have been suspended regroup, you know that they are causing distractions.

“We know the hotel they are staying in now they cannot afford it. The NLC (Nigeria Labour Congress) and TUC (Trade Union Congress) are the custodians of this party. Anyone they don’t approve of is not part of it.

“You can see that this house is intact and we are not divided. We are a responsible party and we will continue to be responsible,” she assured.

Acting National Publicity Secretary Obiora Ifoh who read the text of the press conference, said Obi, state party chairmen and other LP members invited to the Bauchi NEC meeting, rejected the invitation.

According to him, “All the state chairmen of our party across all the 36 states and FCT, are here seated with us.

“Only last night, all our 36 members-elect of the House of Representatives and our eight Senators-elect were represented in a caucus meeting held with the National Working Committee.

“Then again, I ask, who are these NEC members they are hoping to attend their jamboree in Bauchi?”

The party spokesperson accused unnamed two governors of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), “one from South West and another from South East,” of being behind the plot to destabilise the LP.

“We also have it on a reliable source that they will attempt to have a blanket suspension of all our elected members of our NWC, a power that is alien and unheard of.

“They have also been dangling carrots to some of our leaders to either join them or be suspended,” he added.

LP governorship candidate in Enugu State Chijioke Edeoga who was present at the press conference, said the party is already in court, challenging the declaration of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, as winner of the governorship election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

“In their own thinking, going to court means we don’t have money; we are already there. By the grace of God, we know that the judiciary, which is the hope of the common man, will not fail us. Labour will continue to be stronger and stronger,” Edoga stated.

He said the party won two out of three senatorial seats in Enugu State; seven out of eight House of Representatives seats, and 14 out of 24 seats in the state House of Assembly.