A ward in the Edo State chapter of the Labour Party (LP) has suspended the national chairman of the party, Julius Abure, over alleged anti-party activities.
The suspension comes one week after Senator Iyoricha Ayu, National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was suspended by his ward in Benue State.
That action led to the eventual removal of Ayu as chairman of the PDP as a court ordered his removal based on the suspension.
At a press conference, Martins Osigbemhe, the Ward Chairman, said Abure was suspended by the executive, pending the determination of the numerous petitions and cases against him in courts.
But the National Secretary of the party, Mallam Farouk Umar, dismissed the suspension as illegal.
“They also made some spurious allegations against him which is untrue and concocted by the sponsors of the Press Conference. We however deemed it fit to make some responses.
“The Young men we saw on that visuals are apparently not anybody from Labour Party in Edo State as claimed. The executives of the party in the state, Local Government and my ward are well known to the party.
“None of them were at the press conference. We make bold to say that they are people assembled and rented from some Abuja slums and paid to read a prepared speech given to them,” Umar said.
He said that the LPs Constitution is clear on who can suspend and who cannot suspend the National Chairman.
He said, “They should go and read the party constitution. It is only the National Convention that can suspend the National chairman of the Labour Party. It also must be through such a convention called for the purpose of the suspension of the National Chairman.”
He also said that the sudden suspension was an after thought of some opposition parties purely to distract the leadership of the Labour Party at this time.
“There is no reasonable party member at this point in time who will be thinking of such thing when we are pursuing our presidential mandate in the court and all other mandates including the governorship, Senate and House of Representatives that were brazenly stolen.
“A party from the blues competing with the top two political parties and in the process, winning eight Senate and 34 House of Representatives as well as numerous House of Assembly seats. We also won a governorship seat while we are in court to retrieve other mandates including the presidency.
“This is certainly not a matter that should be given serious attention by the media. We ordinarily should be talking to our lawyers by now but the fact that you are dealing with faceless individuals who are obviously been sponsored.
“We are also calling on Nigerians to distance themselves from politicians who take pleasure in maligning political leaders, especially, politicians who are afraid of the rising profile of our National Chairman, Julius Abure,” Umar said.
