Following the judgement of the Appeal Court sitting in Owerri, Imo State, the Julius Abure faction of the Labour Party (LP) has refuted claims made by Lamidi Apapa that the court has affirmed him as the authentic National Chairman of the party.
Malam Umar Farouk, the National Secretary of the faction said this at a news conference in Abuja on Friday.
Farouk said that the Certified True Copy of the suit did not involve Abure.
In his words, “This conference is called purposely to clear the air on yet another attempt by some of our former members.
“They rebelled against the party and went ahead to shamelessly to misinform members of the public on the huge progress being made to reposition LP as one of the biggest political parties in Nigeria.
“Lamidi Apapa and a few others are being sponsored, their assignment is to ensure that no progress is achieved in the party.
“The heavily funded dissidents have tried to mislead the courts and some sections of the media to harass the party leadership but all have failed,” he said.
Farouk said that the Court of Appeal sitting in Benin had affirmed Abure as the National Chairman of the party.
“Only yesterday, the Court of Appeal Owerri, which sat in Abuja, gave judgement in the case brought before it by one Basil Maduka, one of the two aspirants deceived by the Apapa’s camp to participate in their illegal primaries.
“The matter was on who the real LP candidate in the Imo governorship election is and not to challenge Abure’s position as chairman.
“The court also ordered that the status quo remains with Sen. Athan Achonu as the validly nominated candidate of LP for 2023 Imo governorship election.
“It noted that Basil Maduka has no locus to seek redress in the court as he is not known by the LP, ” he said.
Farouk said that the Appeal Court in Edo had since ruled that Abure was the authentic chairman of the LP and everything done under his leadership, including nominating candidates for elections, was legal.
He said that it thus meant that whoever was not satisfied with the ruling of the Appeal Court was permitted under the law to approach the Supreme Court to seek a review of the Appeal Court judgement.
”The LP took time to explain this trajectory because these men are out to ensure that the party suffers immeasurably and they will stop at nothing from achieving the mandate of their sponsors.
”We state categorically that Achonu remains the LP’s governorship candidate in Imo as no court has stated otherwise.”
He said that the Independent National Electoral Commission had since published his name as the party’s candidate.
