The Labour Party (LP) on Tuesday expressed concern over a move made by Lamidi Apapa, a self-described factional leader within the party, asking the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal to dismiss all cases brought by his party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, challenging Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the election on February 25, 2023.
Obiora Ifoh, the LP’s acting national publicity secretary, pleaded with the Abuja tribunal to dismiss Apapa’s “antics” in a statement on Tuesday. Apapa is the party’s suspended Deputy National Chairman.
“We are instructing all branches of the judiciary, including the tribunals and courts, by means of this declaration to disregard the ignoble behavior of these compromised suspended party members. We are also requesting that the EFCC, DSS, and police detain these adversaries of democracy, the speaker added in a statement.
Ifoh claimed that Apapa is attempting to undermine Obi’s triumph with his behavior in a later interview on Tuesday’s Politics Today program on Channels Television.
“Approaching the tribunals to have all of the lawsuits filed by Labour Party candidates withdrawn uniformly is the height of deceit, and Nigerians will not fall for this plot to throw the country into needless strife.
“Their acts demonstrate that they are working against the party and to sabotage it. Will they also assert that they have issues with the party’s candidates if they say they have issues with the national leadership of the party? What transgression did the party’s candidates make that has them attempting to remove their cases from the tribunal?
The Labour Party’s leadership is requesting that any letter from Samuel Akingbade, our suspended national legal adviser, ordering the withdrawal of all of our lawsuits, be ignored by the tribunals.
The statement added, “We are also requesting that the Presidential Election Tribunal disregard such letters from these former officials of our party asking for the withdrawal of HE Peter Obi’s petition.”
Following a new legal dispute within the party, Apapa formally proclaimed himself the LP national chairman earlier in April. Following this event, the state chairmen of the Labor Party in the 36 states that make up the federation disavowed the factional leadership and supported Julius Abure as the party’s head.
Even though the court had suspended Abure and other national officers, Apapa argued that he is still the party’s national leader. Now, what else could have happened if that had? On Sunday Politics on Channels Television, he remarked, “The next guy should take over.
