LP crisis: NLC, Abure blame each other over internal crisis

The President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Comrade Joe Ajaero, and the Julius Abure-led faction of the Labour Party, LP, have traded blame over those responsible for the ongoing internal political wrangling plaguing the party.

DAILY POST reports that while Ajaero put the blame squarely on the ruling party and the federal government, Abure insisted that it’s the likes of Ajaero, the NLC and their support for the Senator Nenadi Usman-led National Caretaker Committee that were to blame.

At a stakeholders’ meeting of the Usman-led LP-NCC on Wednesday, Ajaero noted that, “It is the potential that we have that is attracting all these attacks. All the agencies of government are involved in the destabilisation plot.

“I call on the government to stop destabilising workers party. All over the world, Labour Party is organised and run by trade unions. Over 57 countries have functional Labour Parties; why will Nigeria be different? The Labour Party is the only party a son of a poor man can become somebody.

“In the next month we will finish with sensitisation. Those who want to join Labour Party should come now, but he should be an institutional person.”

According to him, the founders of the party owe it a duty to put the party in order, saying they are not quarrelling with anybody.

“I sent a letter after the Supreme Court judgement that every worker should be on standby. In the next few days there will be an action to take what belongs to us,” he added.

Responding, the Abure-led faction, in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Obiora Ifoh, said the NLC and its president should leave the federal government and its agencies out of the party’s internal issues and look inwards.

He maintained that the attention of the leadership of the LP under Abure’s leadership was drawn to “yet another illegal and purported stakeholders meeting” held in Abuja by the Ajaero-led NLC in cohorts with the Nenadi Usman-led group.

“We must state clearly and categorically that if there is any person or organisation that has destabilised the Labour Party or who is working to destabilise the party, it is no other person than Joe Ajero and the NLC.

“We must also state here that after the general election in 2023, the party had no issues at all; we had no faction, and we had no major disagreement in the party.

“It was Ajero who went ahead to illegally, unprofessionally and unconstitutionally set up a so-called Transition Committee which went all over the place making noise and debasing the image of the party.

“It was the same committee set up by Ajero that was going to INEC every day, constituting a nuisance, all in an attempt to destabilise the party, mobilising people, including old and retired men, including Abdulawaheed Omar, Comrade Ejiofor, Lawson Osagie and Prof. Theophilus Ndubaku, men who should be resting after many years of serving their fatherland, to go against the interest of the party.

“Nigerians all over have asked Ajero to concentrate on his primary assignment to fight for the welfare of workers.

“The regulatory body in charge of the Labour Union in the Ministry of Labour has also publicly admonished Ajaero to excuse himself from matters concerning politics and to face his legitimate assignment to defend workers interests.

“If there is any group or persons who have worked against the interest of the Labour Party, it is NLC and Joe Ajero. So he should not shift the blame to any person; he should squarely take responsibility for whatever is happening in the party today,” Ifoh said.