The National Chairman of Labour Party(LP), Mr Julius Abure, has faulted Wednesday’s picketing of the National Secretariat of the party by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) saying it is a show of shame.
This was contained in a statement by the LP National Publicity Secretary, Mr Obiora Ifoh, on Thursday in Abuja.
Abure also described the action as a show of rascality, an abuse of office and an abuse of the law of the land. He also accused the NLC President, Joe Ajaero of plotting to hijack the party ahead of the 2027 election.
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“Where they besieged the office, broke the fence, destroyed the gates, unlawfully took possession of the Secretariat and destroyed properties worth millions of naira.
“Properties stolen including monies made for the payment of salaries and other official purposes. This is unfortunate.
“I must state today that the leadership of NLC under Joe Ajaero is on the part of destroying the successes we have recorded in the 2023 general election.
“I had expected that as a responsible trade union centre, a responsible labour leader; he should have teamed up with the Labour Party to see how we can team up together to make the country better,” he said.
He added: “Unfortunately and ironically too, the NLC is the one that is on the path of war against LP.
“I must state clearly that Ajaero as NLC President has not been able to organise a successful strike action.
“Not even a single protest or even picketing government establishment in order to bring the government to accede to the numerous requests of workers.
“As we speak, there are unfair labour practices meted out to workers by several organisations in the country. I have not seen Joe Ajaero go to such organisations to picket them.”
The LP National Chairman added that NLC had been claiming ownership of LP which was not true.
He said that the party was not owned by the NLC.
“We are not the employees of NLC and they don’t have the legitimate reason to picket our office.
“We have no trade union dispute with NLC, there is no notice issued to us that we have a trade union dispute with NLC. This is clearly an abuse of office and abuse of the laws of the land.
“Let me also state here that the propaganda they have been carrying around that we are planning a secret convention is totally false.
“The NEC met in April 2023 in Asaba and granted the permission that the convention must hold in one year. We started planning for the Convention since then,” he said.
Abure added:“We communicated with INEC as requested by the law. We have also informed all the stakeholders including NLC. I have discussed the issue with Ajaero on several occasions.
“The NLC on its own wrote to INEC on several occasions on the need to hold the convention.
“We are surprised that the same NLC is the one that is asking that the convention should not be held again.
“He has ulterior motives and we will not allow him to hijack the party.”
