The Labour Party (LP) has accused external forces of fuelling the internal wrangling in the party which has made the process of reconciliation difficult.
Recall that Justice Hamza Muazu of the Federal High Court, Abuja, on April 5th, restrained the party’s National Chairman, Julius Abure, Farouk Ibrahim, Clement Ojukwu, and Oluchi Opara from acting as national officers of the party.
Following the court ruling, the party’s Deputy Chairman (South), Lamidi Apapa, took over as Acting Chairman of the party.
However, on Tuesday, the National Working Committee (NEC) of the Labour Party suspended Apapa and five other executives for “anti-party activities, contravening the constitution of the party and running of parallel leadership and putting the party in total disrepute”.
In an interview with The Punch, the Acting National Publicity Secretary of the party, Obiora Ifoh, alleged that the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are behind the internal crisis.
Ifoh said members of the ruling party have infiltrated the LP and compromised some of their members.
He said: “We have it on good authority that the APC is behind it. Not just the ruling party but the PDP as well. They felt that if they relegated us to the second position in the presidential election, it would arouse suspicion that LP won the election. So they smartly pegged us at third place. We are not ruling out the fact that even the PDP is also working against us, The one that is obvious was that of the APC, which we know has infiltrated our party members.
“As I said, this thing you called internal wrangling has some external forces pulling the strings. It is a case of the tiny voice of Jacob and the hand of Esau. So it will be difficult. We made efforts and sent queries. It was up to them to do the right thing. But because there were a lot of people outside fuelling the crisis, it made the whole process so difficult.”
