Kenneth Okonkwo, the spokesperson for the 2023 Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council (LP-PCC), has spoken out on Lamidi Apapa’s role as the party’s acting National Chairman.
The LP has been engulfed in a leadership crisis since an FCT High Court on April 5 barred the National Chairman of the Labour Party, Mr Julius Abure; National Secretary, Alhaji Farouk Ibrahim; and two others from parading themselves as party national officers.
Apapa, then-Deputy National Chairman, South, went on to serve as national chairman in an acting capacity, prompting charges of duplicity.
Asked to respond to the arguments of seemingly conflicting court judgements on the party’s leadership, Okonkwo said the parallel leadership should not be seen as legitimate.
During a live appearance on Monday’s edition of Channels Television’s primetime programme, Politics Today, the campaign spokesman described Apapa and his loyalists as “politicians of convenience” and “fortune”, rather than of “conviction” and “fortitude”.
He further argued that one should “not ever call them a faction” of the party.
“There is no crisis in Labour Party and I refer you to the Labour Party constitution,” he said.
“Article 13(1)(b)(iv) says it is only the national convention that can elect or remove the national officers. And then Article 13(2)(b)(xvi) and (xvii) says it is only the NEC that can replace the vacancy in any national office and that it is only the NEC that can discipline any national officer.
“So, please, these people you’re calling that they are a faction of Labour Party, who brought them in as national officers of Labour party? They are not in any way any Labour Party national officers.”