The Labour Party (LP) State Chairmen have warned the factional chairman of the party, Lamidi Apapa, against screening aspirants for the off-circle election.
Addressing newsmen on Wednesday in Abuja, the Chairman of Forum of States LP Chairmen, Kehinde Rotimi, said the Apapa faction does not have the authority to screen anyone because they remain suspended officials
Rotimi, who is the Kwara chairman of LP, said screening was currently ongoing for the off-circle governorship elections for Bayelsa, Kogi and Imo and the Juslis Abure faction has the right to screen aspirants.
He said: “We were at the screening yesterday when we learnt that some people constituted themselves in the party’s Secretariat to screen some candidates for the elections.
“When we heard that, we said that was an aberration because they don’t have the legal standing to do that.
“We have our own screening committee. The committee has screened many candidates.
“We came here today to meet at our secretariat but we discovered that it was under lock and key.”
Rotimi said that the chairmen resisted the temptation to cause commotion to avoid contempt of court since the matter was now a legal issue.
He added: “If someone goes to court to accuse someone of an offence or crime, the person must be heard according to the provisions of Section 36 of the 1999 Constitution as amended.
“In this case, you accused four principal officers of the party of a very serious offence but they have not been heard by the court the next thing we are hearing is they should stop parading themselves as officers of LP.
“We are part of the chairmen council, which is a very integral part of NEC and have the final authority to rectify any decision taken by the party.
“The NEC had not met to decide if Apapa and other suspended members would be called back from suspension but they were already parading themselves as officers which was bad.”
