Nenadi Usman, chairperson of the Labour Party (LP) caretaker committee, has challenged Julius Abure to follow through on his threat to expose high-ranking party members, including Peter Obi and Alex Otti.
Speaking on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme, on Friday, Usman said Abure’s warnings were empty unless he could substantiate his claims.
“Well, I am challenging him to expose us. If you have anybody to expose, you don’t go and talk now, you go and expose them,” she said.
Earlier in the week, Abure, the factional national chairman of the LP, issued a veiled threat, stating: “I am waiting for them — from top to bottom — to make any other move and I will open my mouth. And when I open my mouth, wherever they go to, they will be like smelly eggs, rotten eggs that nobody will ever buy.”
Usman dismissed his remarks as bluster and asserted that there are ongoing police investigations into Abure’s conduct. “We have a lot of things about him and that is why the people whom he did it to went to the police. The police are investigating him and very soon you will hear about it,” she said.
She described the crisis within the LP as an assault on internal democracy, warning that the party must not turn into an extension of the ruling government. “Generally, you would agree with me that every democracy needs to have a vibrant opposition. So when the opposition wants to become part of the ruling party, then there’s a problem. And that is where we are today,” she said.
Usman insisted that Abure’s tenure had expired and that the party had acted in accordance with the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) directive to resolve the resulting leadership vacuum. “Principally, the Labour Party leadership at some point had issues with INEC because the tenure of Abure and his NWC had come to an end,” she explained. “Which was why when INEC invited leaders of political parties, he attended the meeting and was told to step out with his secretary.”
According to her, Abure then approached the courts and obtained a ruling in his favour, compelling INEC to continue recognising him. “We, of course, appealed. Even at the court of appeal, judgment was still given in his favour that INEC should recognise him,” she said.
She noted that the Supreme Court later overturned the lower court rulings, stating that they lacked jurisdiction on the matter. “We went to the supreme court and the supreme court looked at the issue critically and said the two lower courts didn’t have any jurisdiction. They said his tenure was over, he is not the chairman, he’s no longer the chairman of the Labour Party,” she said.
Usman cited Justice Inyang Okoro’s remarks from the judgment, quoting him as saying: “Please, leaders, when your tenure comes to an end in an office, please kindly leave honourably.”
She reiterated that INEC had instructed the party to organise congresses from the ward to the national level. “If INEC says you don’t have leaders, your leadership, their tenure is over, then go and start having congresses,” she said. “From the ward to the state, to local government, you do your zonal thing, come and have a national convention where you elect new leaders.”
She said the party’s national executive committee (NEC) moved to form a caretaker committee to oversee the transition and conduct of fresh elections. “What the party did was to look at the major stakeholders and members of the NEC. They said what we should do is get together a committee that would come conduct all these congresses so that at the end of the day, we’ll have properly elected leaders,” she said.
Usman added that Abure was free to contest in the fresh elections if he still aspired to lead the party. “Even Julius Abure, if he still wants to remain chairman, he could go through the election,” she said. “But he doesn’t want to go through election, his NWC, they don’t want to go through election. They just want to be using the courts to remain as leaders. I think that’s not good for opposition.”
The LP has been mired in a leadership dispute, with factions aligned either with Abure or with the caretaker committee backed by Peter Obi, Alex Otti, and Senator Ireti Kingibe. The Supreme Court ruling in April, which stated that the court of appeal lacked jurisdiction to declare Abure chairman, has been interpreted differently by both camps, each claiming legitimacy.
On May 7, Abure’s faction suspended Otti and Kingibe over alleged anti-party activities. Two days later, the Usman-led faction suspended Abure and accused him of illegally parading himself as the LP’s national chairman despite the court ruling.
