Akinwande Soji-Ojo
The Director General, Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Council, Dr Akin Osuntokun, has said the judiciary was responsible for the leadership crisis rocking the Labour Party.
Osuntokun stated this while featuring on Channels Television, on Thursday.
“It is a judge that gave the judgement that is now responsible for creating a crisis in the Labour Party.
“Judges in Nigeria rely more on technicalities, evasive tactics, to take very crucial positions. It is the judge who gave the judgement that is causing the crisis right now,” he said.
“There was a judge who in his discretion said that Abure who has been chairman that supervised the presidential, governorship, National Assembly and Houses of Assembly primaries. The judge, thereafter, gave a judgement that, that chairman should no longer parade himself as chairman, what do you make of that?
“Look at who and who brought the case to him? The judge is a Nigerian, he should have take a more logical position using his discretion.
“Does it mean that if a clerk brings a matter to the court against the Labour Party, he would pass judgement based on that.
“That the party chairman should no longer parade himself as chairman? Look, judges have discretion on how to do what is proper,” Osuntokun added.
The campaign Director General maintained that those who do not mean well for Nigeria are the ones causing the problem for the country.
He said Abure enjoys the support of all members of the party, adding that the activities of the factional chairman of the party, Bashiru Lamidi Apapa, amounted to anti-party and the party’s National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Asaba had taken action against all the defaulting members.
Osuntokun also said that there won’t be any peace meeting with the Apapa faction over the leadership tussle in the party, stressing that the Labour Party can’t hold talks with somebody who wants to burgle it.
He alleged that at a meeting in Abuja on Wednesday, the Apapa faction had perfected plans to subvert the legal process of the Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, at the tribunal.
“What are your motives? If you are interested in the good of the party, is this what you should be doing at this time?” he queried.
Recall that at its meeting in Asaba on Tuesday, the party’s NEC granted 12 months extension to the Abure-led National Working Committee (NWC) and ratified the expulsion of the factional National Publicity Secretary, Dr Abayomi Arabambi. It also suspended Apapa pending a decision at its next convention.
