.You’re a bad student of history, LP tells labour centre
There seems no end in sight on the dispute between Labour Party (LP) and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), as the party’s suspended National Treasurer, Oluchi Okpara, has leaked a document that confirmed that the labour centre had a pact with the newly elected national chairman, Julius Abure.
The political wing of the union, at a stakeholders’ meeting, had reportedly sacked Abure and his National Working Committee ( NWC) members, declaring the recent convention in Nnewi, Anambra State that returned them as kangaroo.
A decision termed illegal by Abure and his leadership.
The classified information indicated that there was a dispute between the duo, which was mediated by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in 2022, showing Abure’s signature of LP and that of the NLC boss, Ayuba Wabba.
Titled “Report of Mediated Settlement between The Nigeria Labour Congress and the Labour Party by the Independent National Electoral Commission,
Zambezi Crescent Maitama, Abuja, the document reads in part: “We bring you fraternal greetings from the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Labour Party (LP).
“We write to inform you that the mediation initiative brokered by INEC in the dispute between the NLC and LP has been successfully consummated on the 27th of June 2022.
“The consummation of the resolution is established in terms of settlement, which was willingly reached without any duress whatsoever between the two parties, the NLC and Labour Party, and validated by the signatures of the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Comrade Ayuba Wabba, and National Chairman of Labour Party, Barrister Julius Abure, General Secretary of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Comrade Emmanuel Ugboaja, and the National Secretary of the Labour Party, Alhaji Umar Farouk Ibrahim.”
However, the party’s NWC has described the Joe Ajaero–led NLC as a “bad student of history” following what it said was a “futile attempt by the labour union to takeover LP.”
Its National Publicity Secretary, Obiora Ifoh, submitted in a statement yesterday in Abuja.
His words: “Where people refuse to learn from history, history will continue to repeat itself.
“When the Nigeria Labour Congress in 2015 attempted to crookedly take over the leadership of the Labour Party and wrote INEC, INEC replied them that they have no locus standi to interfere or change the leadership of the party.
“They have failed to learn from that trajectory, and, surprisingly, Joe Ajaero’s NLC is also taking the same line of action and trajectory, and they are expecting a different result.
“A reasonable NLC would have been thinking of how to consolidate with the leadership of the Labour Party, having made huge exploits, and having achieved great results from the 2023 general elections, rather they have chosen a collision course, which will neither help them nor help Nigerians.”