Akin Osuntokun, the Director General of the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council, has expressed his belief that the judiciary is responsible for the current crisis engulfing the party.
Osuntokun specifically pointed to the judgment by Justice Muazu, which ordered Julius Abure and other national executives of the party to stop parading themselves as national officers of the party, as the source of the dispute.
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In an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, Osuntokun said, “There is nothing going on (in the Labour Party) other than the crisis of the judiciary. It is a judge, the judiciary that made a judgment that is now responsible for creating a crisis in the Labour Party.”
He went on to describe how the judge had ordered Abure, who had been serving as the chairman for the primaries of the presidential, governorship, and state houses of assembly, to no longer parade himself as the chairman.
Osuntokun criticized the judge’s decision, stating that he could have taken a more logical position and that it seemed unjust for the judge to make such a decision based on a complaint brought by a clerk in the Labour Party.
He also mentioned that the party has been in a leadership tussle since the loss of its presidential candidate Peter Obi in the 2023 general elections.
The crisis started after the Federal Capital Territory High Court in Abuja issued an order restraining Julius Abure from acting as the national chairman of the LP, along with the party’s Secretary, Farouk Ibrahim, and two other national officials.
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The restraining order was given by Justice Hamza Muazu while ruling on an ex-parte application argued by James Onoja, who told the court how the restrained National officers reportedly forged several documents from the FCT High Court in order to carry out unlawful substitutions in the last general elections.
Following the Abuja court judgment, the Deputy National Chairman of LP (South), Lamidi Apapa, declared himself the acting Chairman of the party.
However, some LP state chairmen disowned Apapa and threw their weight behind Abure as LP chairman, calling Apapa a factional leader. The dispute has caused confusion and tension within the party, with some members calling for a resolution to the crisis.
