The Labour Party (LP) has said the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) lacks the power to deregister the party.
The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Obiora Ifoh, said this in a statement yesterday in Abuja.
The party described comments allegedly attributed to the caretaker committee chairman of the party, Nenadi Usman, that its intervention saved the party from being deregistered by INEC as “ludicrous, unattainable, unsubstantiated and a pack of lies”.
It reads: “The attention of the leadership of the Labour Party has been drawn to a statement issued by Senator Nenadi Usman, a card-carrying member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), wherein she claimed that the quick intervention of some leaders of the party at the September 4, 2024 stakeholders’ meeting in Umuahia (Abia State) saved the party from being deregistered by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
“The Labour Party leadership wishes to refute that statement as ludicrous, unattainable, unsubstantiated, and a pack of lies. We wish to state emphatically that the Labour Party is in a good shape at the moment, having fully abided by the laws of the land and therefore cannot be deregistered by INEC.
“These leaders have also mischievously leveraged INEC’s misinformed and erroneous disposition that the tenure of the party’s current executives has expired. It is paradoxical that some of these leaders, who were victims of INEC’s mismanagement of the 2023 general election, are now the ones quoting INEC, in order to victimise the leadership of the Labour Party.
“As we have maintained earlier, the September 4 stakeholders’ meeting held in Umuahia is unconstitutional and illegal as the party’s constitution clearly states all the organs of the party, of which Stakeholder is not one of them. The stakeholder group which produced Senator Usman as its leader has no foundation whatsoever, and therefore, its existence is delusional and can never be recognised by INEC or any law of the land.
“Senator Nenadi’s claim that the Stakeholders saved the party from being deregistered by the INEC is equally preposterous.This us because the existence of the Labour Party is not under any threat.
“Perhaps, Nenadi Usman is not aware that Appeal Courts, both in Edo State and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), have affirmed Julius Abure as the rightful National Chairman of the party. She is probably unaware that a Federal High Court in Abuja, presided over by Justice J. K. Omotosho, had also declared that the national convention of the party held in Nnewi on the March 26, 2024 is valid and was conducted in line with the requirement of both the 2022 Electoral Act and Labour Party constitution.
“We wish to remind Senator Usman that even the Supreme Court in several judgments had ruled that Issues regarding delegates at a national convention or how the convention is planned and executed by a political party are outside the jurisdiction of any court of the land being internal affairs of a party