Ahead of the September governorship election in Edo State, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has hinted that there is move to settle the dispute between the gubernatorial candidate of Labour party, Olumide Akpata and Kenneth Imansuangbon, who contested against Akpata at the primaries.

The NLC, through its Political Commission has accused the embattled national Chairman of the party, Julius Abure of being behind the crisis in the Labour Party, because of his alleged transactional business with party’s tickets.

The Labour Movement, who recently passed vote of no confidence in the Abure-led National Working Committee, hinted that after the stakeholders meeting next week to resolve leadership crisis and put in place a new NWC, it will set up a committee that will investigate the alleged transactional business by Abure.

It will be recalled that Barrister Imansuangbon had approached the court seeking the disqualification of Olumide Akpata, who is the LP flag bearer in the forthcoming governorship election.

Speaking in Abuja, Chairman of the NLC Political Commission, Professor Theophilus Ndubuaku, said that consultation has been held with the LP caucus in the National Assembly on putting in place the leadership of the party.

Commenting on the court case against the party’s governorship candidate in Edo State instituted by Barrister Imansuangbon, which may likely affect the chances of Labour Party in the September election, Prof. Ndubuaku said something has been put in place to resolve the matter.

“We are aware, there is already something set in motion to resolve the crisis. All these were caused by Abure’s transactional leadership and so people are agrieved because of the way he was acting. We hope that the “Rice Man” (Imansuangbon) matter will be solved,” he said.

Asked whether the crisis and the delay in setting up a proper leadership of the party, will not affect its candidate in Edo State, he said, “It may but the Labour Party in Edo already has a candidate, so what we are looking at is that once we announce members of the executive, the committee will be set up to strengthen whatever is going on in Edo.

“The different committees may swing into action to whatever is going on in Edo that’s why we are working strongly to make sure that …”

Reminded that the youth leader in the state recently declared himself the chairman of Labour Party, Prof. Ndubuaku said:

“We expect all these confusion to continue until the stakeholders come up with the list of committee members and the leadership, when we now come up with something, we are hoping that everything will be clearer.

“We are consulting generally, we have consulted the National Assembly caucus we are also looking at what to do with Abure and all the fraudulent allegations against him and all the alleged illegality and maneuvering.

“We are planning to call another stakeholders meeting because it is the stakeholders that will nominate people who will now occupy those positions, committees and things like that and then decide how to move on.

“The Political Commission is not doing anything on its own. Remember the other time we called a stakeholders meeting and they now agreed on certain things. So, since that time the stakeholders have been consulting, identifying people who can do this or do that.

“So when they come next week, they will now tell us the people they have identified who can do the job and then they will now put them in place. The stakeholders are people that have followers spread across the country.

“This thing came up because Abure messed up, so it wasn’t as if it is something that was on ground. The Political Commission was only dealing with the Nigerian workers who are politically sensitive and who didn’t even belong to one party, but when we now found out that the party we registered for the emancipation of Nigerian workers has now been corrupted, we now started to see how we can get the guy to make him amend his ways , when he refused to amend his ways and started playing dangerous prank, we now have to call the stakeholders, we have been able to get them as much as we can.

“Maybe after the stakeholders meeting, there will be some committees that will now take over the issues of election and other things.

“The truth about this let me tell you is that Abure is not interested in winning of election by anybody under Labour Party, you can’t believe it.

“We have evidence that Abure is not interested in anybody who has the ticket of Labour Party winning election. His interest is not in supporting anybody that has the ticket of anybody to win election; all he wants to do is to do his transactional business, give out the ticket but does not give any backing.

“We are about asking Nigerians who have been scammed by Abure all over the country to send their petitions to a subcommittee that is going to be formed by the stakeholders and then the committee will now collate and then reveal all that had happened under Abure, when that comes, you will now understand why I am saying this,” he added. (Vanguard)

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