A Chieftain of the Labour Party and former Director-General of the dissolved Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Council, Akin Osuntokun, has said that the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 elections, Peter Obi, and the governor of Abia State, Alex Otti, are the members who have the most legitimate claim to the leadership of Labour Party, as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said it no longer recognises Julius Abure as Chairman of the party.
Osuntokun said this in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Wednesday, where he spoke o the current internal crisis within the Labour Party, as he also debunked allegations by the National Publicity Secretary of the Julius Abure-led faction of the Labour Party who said that he had, along with Obi, Aisha Yesufu and Pastor Ituah Ighodalo misappropriated N600 million from the Obi-Datti campaign funds.
Speaking on the leadership struggle within the Labour Party, the LP Chieftain said, “When you talk about factions or no factions, like I have said, it’s a question of legitimacy. Even legally speaking, I don’t have a lot of regard for the INEC, but it is the approving authorities of political parties in Nigeria. If INEC says today that it does not recognise you as a party, then you are not a party, unfortunately that is the law. For you to have a convention in which you are going to elect a chairman and other members of the executive, you will need the presence of INEC to certify it. So, on that score alone, he’s gone.”
He went on to say, “If a party produces the president, he is automatically the leader of the party. So, with regards to the Labour Party, we want to apply the same logic- the presidential candidate is the leader of the party. The only governor, the highest elected official on the platform of Labour Party is Governor Otti. Those people have better legitimacy claim to claim who has vested interest in the party. So, it is not a question of faction or no faction. These people- it would have been irresponsible of them for them to see things deteriorate and go on all sorts of crises and keep quiet.
“At one time or the other, their intervention is needed. So, if Abure is still interested in being a member of the party and wants to contest for the Chairmanship of the party, he has to go through a process, the process through which he has been appointed as the “Labour Party Chairman” is flawed. And as I said, the approving authority who signs off, whose consent is needed to say whether you’re a party or now is INEC, and INEC has said that they don’t recognise him. So, essentially what you’re left with is what should be the party itself, I mean, beginning from where Obi is.”
Speaking more to his belief that Obi had more claim to LP’s leadership, Osuntokun said, “All along, I have always believed that the constitution should have room for independent candidacy. Obi essentially was an independent candidate. The greatest, the most substantial part of those who were the Obidients were not Labour Party people, not at all. And that was the group that made Peter Obi.”
“It is a category mistake to be saying that the young generation were rooting for Labour Party, no, it wasn’t Labour Party, it was Obi himself that attributed them, that caught their imagination,” he added.
Osuntokun then addressed the allegation of the misappropriation of the N600 million from the campaign funds, saying, “As regards the 600 million, initially, I didn’t want to get into it, but for the sake of Chief Ayo Adebanjo who is a bit indisposed now, you know, dragging that kind of person, a revered man who spent 90 years serving Nigeria, to just drag his name in the mud like that. You sent N600 million, the total amount that was spent on the campaign as earlier given by Aisha Yesufu- Aisha Yesufu and Ituah Ighodalo were the signatory to the campaign account. The day before Arabambi spoke, she gave an account of the total money, according to her was about N1.3 billion. So, does it make sense that from that 1.3 billion, somebody will take N600 million and give it to myself? Does that make sense?”
He then accused Arabambi of saying these accusations without evidence, saying, “This guy who spoke on behalf of Labour Party, Arabambi, was the same person who was attacking Abure to the point of coming to the, during the sitting of the Federal court of appeal, he himself and Apapa to come and disrupt the session. At that time, it was Apapa and Arabambi’s faction. Now, this same Abure, Abure’s faction so to say, publicity secretary of Abure’s faction is Obiora Ifoh, not Arabambi. So, Arabambi woke up one day a week ago and addressed a national press conference from Abeokuta. So, I can choose now as National Publicity Secretary of the party to be calling press conference from Ado Ekiti. So, you’ll immediately see that these are people that you don’t take serious, there’s something fishy, and then you liberally smear people. There is no evidence.”
“Arabambi and Apapa were the sole power at the Labour Party for about one year, they were calling themselves the Labour Party. Beyond the two of them, when they were claiming to be the chairman and the publicity secretary of the party, there was no other member. So, which shows they are the one creating problems for themselves. It’s just that it doesn’t look good on paper that this is happening, but this is precisely what they want. Anybody interested in the stability and functionality of Labour Party will not behave the way they are behaving,” he added.
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