Newly appointed acting national publicity secretary of the LabourParty(LP),Obiora Ifoh, in an interview with OUR ASSISTANT EDITOR, OSARETIN OSADEBAMWEN, said the party crisis is being fuelled by external forces against the court case of the presidential candidate of the party.
As the acting LP spokesman, how do you see the challenge of speaking for a party locked in leadership crisis
You are alluding that the party is locked in a leadership crisis. I do not see it that way. What we have is a few members of the party who have been engaging in anti-party activities. They have been compromised well enough to create unnecessary tension in the party. And the party has taken a decisive action against them.
The national chairman of the party and four others were accused of forgery by a forum of the party’s state chairmen at a meeting held in Asaba, did you look at the case preferred against the chairman alleging forgery?
Abure did not fill out any form for any aspirant. You bought your forms. You were the one that filled the forms, all the party did was upload all your documents to INEC as requested. He now went to the police and said no, the signatures on the documents were forged, How?
Who forged the documents? The National Chairman has nothing to do with the documents he submitted. It was purely a clerical thing. He submitted it to the clerks who uploaded your documents. The National chairman did not have to see it. He did not see it because he did not pay for the forms. In any case, he was used you as a placeholder.
That was all about it. They went ahead because they want to deal with the party based on external forces seeking to ruin the Labour Party. We have evidence of these under-hand dealings. They have gone to court. We have evidence of the various documents that he signed, which we have tendered already, so why make noise, let the court decide. That is the true story of the forgery issue. Nobody forged anything. They are claiming N400m from where. Did Splendor pay one Naira? They are all spurious allegations, they will fall flat before the court.
What was your resolution on the matter?
The party stands with the National chairman of the party, You and Julius Abure saw what played out in Asaba. Decisions were made.
Is there any iota of truth in the saying that the leadership crisis in LP is fuelled by APC?
Of course, we also have it in good authority, that when this crisis started, the APC quickly moved in and started sponsoring them. We have evidence. We also have evidence of what happened in Imo state. Five persons, conducted three different governorship primaries in Imo State. What was their intention? Because they have been reached out to, act in a script of a divided house, they performed the script. Their intention was to cause a crisis in the party and cause and sustain division in the party. We are also aware that they are shopping for a court, where they will go and ask that labour party should be disqualified from contesting the Imo state Guber election over disunity.
They are heavily mobilised to carry out this script by the Imo state government. We are aware of their antics that they should present our candidate as embattled before the elections.
At the national level, what they are doing is being bankrolled by the APC to see if the petitions and appeal by our presidential candidate, His Excellency, Peter Gregory Obi, will have a problem at the end of the day. They are trying to sustain a fight, to present a semblance of division in the party; crisis or crack in the Labour party, the APC leaders have hijacked it, but all these things will not stand because we have our position. They are doing all these things possible to ensure that Peter Obi Victory which we are trying to get back is scuttled.
How true is the report that both parties have withdrawn the cases from the court and are ready to settle out of court?
It is not necessary, after the last court sitting, they addressed a press conference saying that they will seek a court settlement and they are ready to withdraw the matter. We are asking. What matter are you withdrawing, a matter that you do not even have a head over? Allow this matter to run over in the court. So that those who have been compromised within the party would be fished out and completely delayed.
We are not settling out of court. We want the court to hear this matter and to give appropriate punishment to people that are alleging falsehood, we are not interested in settling out of the Court. The only way this matter can be settled out of court is, if they that instituted the cases in court should go ahead and withdraw all their cases, tender apology to the party, come back, and follow the party laid rule for peace mechanism, then we can hear them. While the case is still in court, we cannot settle, because they are standing on shaky land. It cannot work
Is the mandate of Obi threatened in any way with the myriad of reports of pressure on him to withdraw?
Let me make one thing clear here. His Excellency Peter Gregory Obi has said clearly, that he is in court not, because of himself, but because of the future of Nigeria. He is in court, because one person needs to sacrifice to get things straightened, Judiciary and other institutions, to bring our value back.
There are standards set by INEC. According to INEC rules, they are supposed to do things as defined by them. And in our reckoning, we are not sure that these were followed judiciously. And we think there is a need for the court to make certain clarity on the interpretation of the Electoral Act. Not about who wins the election or not.
Of course, we know that by popular vote, His Excellency, Peter Gregory Obi won the election. Nigerians all over came out and voted for him. For the reason best known to INEC, they decided that they are not going to use the standard that they said. And that led to widespread irregularities and manipulations favouring one political party.
Thank God for social media. They are awash with some of this evidence. We are saying, let the right thing be done. If the APC candidate wins. We will know that he has won in a free and fair contest. But not with a myriad of evidence before us. They have used religious pressure and ethnic pressure against His Excellency Peter Obi but he is not a man to be easily rattled.
He has refused to be rattled. He has kept his stand and said, this also, and that is where must go through the judicial interpretation. And that is where we are today, Nigeria deserves the best. What we got under INEC was not the best. Election should be won and lost in the ballot. That was not what transpired in the 2023 general elections.
Votes were awarded. The electoral result from the polling units was mutilated. There were widespread manipulations and intimidations. Up until Today, nobody has been taken to Court. People were threatened with ethnic cleansing, you saw it yourself. Security conspired and collaborated with thugs shall we continue like this? All we are asking the court is to look at myriad of the evidence and tell Nigerians, that what INEC did was right or otherwise.
If the Court says it is right, we will leave the matter for posterity, in our own reckoning. Abnormal things were done. The truth must be told and must be seen to be said.
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