Labour Party Crisis: Let Both Abure And Apapa Step Aside

The founder of the 40 Million Ballots Movement, Kennedy Iyere, a support group of the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, has asked both Julius Abure and Lamidi Apapa, to step aside for the party to have peace.

Iyere asserted that once both factional leaders of the party step down, there would be peace within the Labour Party.

OsunDailyNG recalls that Labour Party executives in Ward 3, Esan North-East local government in Edo State chapter of the party had in March 2023 suspended Abure over alleged anti-party activities.

A development that led the embattled national chairman to approach various courts for his reinstatement, the last of which the Court of Appeal, sitting in Benin City, upheld Abure as the national chairman of the Labour Party.

However, Iyere, who threatened to leave the party, maintained that other parties and organisations could allow their leaders to go for peace to reign when there is a crisis.

He told The Guardian that “LP cannot solve the crisis. Abure has destroyed LP, and even his tenure has expired. The people who are deceiving him with tenure elongation are also complicit in the crises bedevilling the party. They are killing the party. If the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) does not give judgment in favour of the party, LP would die.

“Both Abure and Apapa should go. There was supposed to be a convention in June, but Abure manipulated the process, and he was given an elongation.

“LP has two national chairmen, and none of them will step aside for the other. The solution is to allow the two of them to go so that peace will reign. The situation in the Labour Party is so critical that they even have cabals. Can you beat that?

“When you see people without a source of livelihood, and the only thing they do is politics, things like this are bound to happen. Beyond politics, people should have where they make money. Politics is not meant to be a full-time job. Abure doesn’t have another job, so he would rather lose his life than step aside. It’s like asking him to lose his livelihood; he would rather die.

“Politics is not meant to be a full-time job. The two of them should go so that a new person will bring sanity and breathe fresh air into the party.”

Speaking further, the Labour Party chieftain submitted that the party is in crisis in both Kogi and Bayelsa states, and he doubts if the party has a chance at the forthcoming governorship elections in those states.

Iyere noted that “LP is the poorest party in Nigeria because most of their leaders are hungry and jobless. Apapa became the acting chairman because Abure was suspended when Abure’s term expired; if they had allowed him to go, there would have been a convention, and maybe Apapa wouldn’t have had a chance of parading himself as the chairman of the party now.

“Labour Party does not have money to support any candidate, and it’s a divided house. And when the crisis begins, they will leave you to spend your money in court.”