Akin Osuntokun, the Director General of the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council, has blamed the court for the party’s difficulties following the 2023 general elections.
He said that the party’s present problem was caused by a decision by Federal Capital Territory High Court Judge Hamza Muazu ordering the party’s Chairman, Julius Abure, and other national executives of the party to stop parading themselves as national officials of the party.
“There is nothing going on (in the Labour Party) other than the judiciary problem.” “It is a judge, the court, who issued a decision that has now caused a crisis in the Labour Party,” Osuntokun told reporters.
“It was a court here who, in his judgement, decided that Abure, who has been chairman for the presidential, governorship, and state houses of assembly primaries. Following that, a judge ruled that the chairman should no longer parade himself as such. What do you think? Then consider who and what brought the matter to him.
“The judge is a Nigerian, he reads newspapers like the rest of us, and he might have taken a more rational stance on what was presented to him.” Does this suggest that if a Labour Party staffer files a complaint before you, you may rule on it?”
Osuntokun argued that the judge had the option of allowing the party’s chairman to remain in his post and continue with the lawsuit, but he picked an alternative that demonstrated that he was “setting the party up for trouble.”
In ruling on an ex-parte application, Judge Muazu granted a restraining order to the LP national officers on April 5.
After the Abuja court decision, the party’s Deputy National Chairman (South), Lamidi Apapa, appointed himself interim Chairman.
Nevertheless, on April 6, a State High Court sitting in Benin stopped the Labour Party and all its members from suspending Abure and other national executives pending the outcome of the move on notice.
