A State High Court in Edo dismissed the notice of suspension against Julius Abure, the Labour Party’s embattled national chairman, on Friday. The notice had been issued by certain party members at the ward level.
Justice Emmanuel Aihamoje, the court, dismissed the case on Friday because it lacked merit.
This was said in a statement released on Friday in Abuja by the party’s acting national publicity secretary, Obiora Ifoh, who also revealed that Abure and the executives of LP Ward 3 in Esan North East, Edo State, filed the case.
Aihamoje ruled that the party ward executive in Uromi in ward 3 lacked the authority required by the Labour Party Constitution, in particular Acts 13 & 17 and the Electoral Act of 2022, as amended, to depose the party’s national chairperson in his nearly two-hour-long decision.
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In order to prevent Lamidi Apapa and his side from ousting or suspending Abure as the national chairman until a new national convention of the party is called, the judge in Suit No. HUC/21/2023 went ahead and issued a perpetual injunction.
Aihamoje added that the alleged Wards 3 executive’s decision to suspend the party’s national chairperson was made beyond the bounds of its authority under the Labour Party Constitution.
Aihamoje further stated that the purported wards 3 executive who suspended the national chairman of the party acted outside the powers vested on it by the Labour Party Constitution.
Reacting to the ruling, LP Ward 3 Chairman, Thompson Ehiguese, told journalists at the court premises that the judgement has put an end to impostors who are masquerading as members of the labour party in the ward.
He said;
These charlatans claiming to be members of our party are from Edo North and members of APC. I want to use this medium to congratulate the Labour Party and the Obidient Movement that stood firmly with Comrade Julius Abure while the sponsored crisis in our great party lasted.
The judgement is explicitly clear that Barrister Julius Abure remains the national Chairman until the party convention holds next year. Nothing can change our collective resolve to reclaim Nigerian masses’ mandate freely given to Mr Peter Obi and the party in the last presidential election.
On his part, Edo State Labour Party Chairman, Kelly Ogbaloi, affirmed that Labour party has been vindicated, adding that the court has confirmed Apapa and his faction are ‘tragic power seekers.’
Apapa, who before then was a deputy national chairman and a custodian of the constitution of the party, knew that the act of those who came to Abuja to announce the suspension of the national chairman was not doing so legally, since the action was an aberration to the provisions of the party’s constitution, instead, he ran to the court, seeking ex-parte motion to restrain the national chairman.
Today they have been basically told that the charade can no longer be entertained by the court.
