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Udeze Ekene
Guest
A former Director-General of Obi/Datti Campaign Organization, Akin Osuntokun, has said both the 2023 presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi and Governor Alex Otti have more legitimate claim to the leadership of the party than Julius Abure.
Akin Osuntokun stated that there is no faction in the Labour Party. He noted that the former chairman of the party, Abure failed to understand the reality in Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) confirmation that his tenure has expired.
In an interview with Arise TV, on Wednesday, he also claimed that the process through which Abure became the LP’s national chairman was flawed.
“When you talk about factions or no factions, like I have said, it’s a question of legitimacy. Even legally speaking, I don’t have a lot of regard for the INEC, but it is the approving authority of political parties in Nigeria. If INEC says today that it does not recognize you as a party, then you are not a party, unfortunately, that is the law.
“For you to have a convention in which you are going to elect a chairman and other members of the executive, you will need the presence of INEC to certify it. So, on that score alone, he’s gone.
“If a party produces the president, he is automatically the leader of the party. So, with regards to the Labour Party, we want to apply the same logic, the presidential candidate is the leader of the party. The only governor, the highest elected official on the platform of Labour Party is Governor Otti.
“Those people have better legitimacy claim to claim who has vested interest in the party. So, it is not a question of faction or no faction. These people, it would have been irresponsible of them for them to see things deteriorate and go on all sorts of crises and keep quiet.
“At one time or the other, their intervention is needed. So, if Abure is still interested in being a member of the party and wants to contest for the Chairmanship of the party, he has to go through a process, the process through which he has been appointed as the Labour Party Chairman is flawed,” he said.
Osuntokun explained that it would have been better if the constitution recognized independent candidacy.
He noted that most supporters of the Labour Party supported because of the former governor of Anambra State.
“And as I said, the approving authority who signs off, whose consent is needed to say whether you’re a party or not is INEC, and INEC has said that they don’t recognize him. So, essentially what you’re left with is what should be the party itself, I mean, beginning from where Obi is.
“All along, I have always believed that the constitution should have room for independent candidacy. Obi essentially was an independent candidate. The greatest, the most substantial part of those who were the Obidients were not Labour Party people, not at all. And that was the group that made Peter Obi.”
“It is a category mistake to be saying that the young generation were rooting for Labour Party. No, it wasn’t Labour Party, it was Obi himself that attributed them, that caught their imagination,” Osuntokun added.
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