The Director General of the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council (LP PCC), Akin Osuntokun, has said the judiciary is responsible for the crisis rocking the party after the 2023 general elections.
OsunDaily News recall that Justice Muazu of the Federal High Court in Abuja had on April 5 ordered the LP National Chairman, Julius Abure, and other executive members to stop parading themselves as national officers of the party.
Following the court judgement, the Deputy National Chairman of the party (South), Bashiru Lamidi Apapa, declared himself the acting Chairman of the party and took over the party leadership.
However, a State High Court sitting in Benin, on April 6, restrained Labour Party and all its members from any suspension of Abure and other national officers till the determination of the motion on notice.
Speaking in an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Thursday, Osuntokun said the judgement which ordered the sack of Abure, and other national officers led to the crisis rocking the party.
He stated that there is no leadership tussle in the party other than the crisis created by the judiciary, adding that Abure remains the leader of the party.
Osuntokun maintained that the judge had the option of allowing the chairman of the party remains in his position and go on with the case, but he rather chose an option which set up the party for a crisis.
He 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 judgement that is now responsible for creating a crisis in the Labour Party.
“It was a judge here, who in his discretion, said that Abure, who has been chairman for the primaries of the presidential, for the governorship, for the state houses of assembly. A judge thereafter gave a judgement that that chairman should no longer parade himself as a chairman. What do you make of that? And look at who and who brought the case to him.
“The judge is a Nigerian, he reads newspapers like the rest of us, he could have taken a more logical position on what was brought before him. Does it mean that if a clerk in the Labour Party brings a complaint before you, you can give a judgement on the basis of that?”
