NLC, Labour Party clash over planned national convention

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Labour Party (LP), on Saturday, locked horns over the forthcoming national convention of the party being planned by the Julius Abure-led National Working Committee and scheduled to hold by or before the end of March.

While the NLC said it was not informed about the plan to hold the national convention, the Labour Party argued that nothing concerns the union in the conduct of its affairs, and that the NLC president, Joe Ajaero, should not meddle in what doesn’t concern him.

In a statement jointly signed by the chairperson and secretary of the NLC Political Commission, Comrade Titus Amba and Comrade Chris Uyot respectively, the Congress described the planned convention as “a misadventure in political mischief, mismanagement and misdemeanour gone too far”.

The NLC said it expected the Labour Party led by Abure, after the judgement of the Court of Appeal, to recognise the statutory membership of the organised labour in the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party, constitute its Board of Trustees and conduct an all-inclusive national convention in line with the court judgement.

The NLC said, “The Nigeria Labour Congress Political Commission has received news of the clandestine scheduling of a supposed national convention of the Labour Party in March 2024 by the national chairman, Julius Abure. This news came as a shock to us as the leadership of the NLC was never in anyway informed of any plan to hold the party’s national convention.

“We find this development as further aberration and extrapolation of the mismanagement of the Labour Party through a very strange leadership style of sole administration by the national chairman.

“Mr Julius Abure, contrary to the solidarity spirit and camaraderie ethos of the Labour Party, has decided to run the party as a sole administrator, the same allegation that has been hurled at him by the numerous persons he is fighting in the party.

“We affirm that Abure does not have the sole proprietorship of the processes for a national convention. Our position and interventions in the Labour Party have been in three dimensions.”

But in a swift reaction, the spokesman of the party, Obiora Ifoh, advised Joe Ajaero to resign as NLC president to contest LP chairmanship rather than criticising members of the NWC, adding that nothing can stop the party’s convention as planned and that its constitution is clear on eligible participants.

Ifoh said the ‘rascality’ of the current president of the NLC, Ajaero, has destroyed the successes already recorded, adding that it must be noted that the NLC and its political commission have become a bundle of contradiction and paradox.