Lamidi Apapa Escapes Lynching at Appeal Court, Seeks Obi's Intervention in Party Crisis

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But for the timely intervention of police officials, angry supporters Labour Party (LP) supporters suspected to be sympathetic to the Julius Abure faction of the party would have lynched the Acting National Chairman, Mr. Lamidi Apapa.

Apapa was attending the court's proceedings for the first time yesterday, even though the court had declined to recognise his representation of the Labour Party owing to disagreement on who should represent the party between Apapa and the National Women Leader, Mrs. Dudu Manuga, who had earlier announced appearance alongside Peter Obi.

This was just as the DirectorGeneral of the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council in the 2023 election, Akin Osuntokun, yesterday said the Apapa-led group has nuisance value in the Labour Party.

Obi and LP are currently challenging the declaration of Bola Tinubu as winner of the February 25 presidential election.

Amongst their prayers before the court is the nullification of Tinubu's victory and return them as winner or in the alternative conduct a fresh election on grounds that the February 25 poll that produced Tinubu as President-elect was marred by massive irregularities and substantial non-compliance with the electoral laws and regulations.

After parties joined issues last month the five-man panel of justices hearing the petition had last Wednesday, adjourned to May 17, to enable parties finalise the harmonisation of documents to be pleaded during trial.

At yesterday's proceedings, Obi's lawyer, Dr. Levi Uzoukwu, had informed the court that parties could not meet as directed by the court due to the refusal of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to release necessary documents, particularly from Sokoto and Rivers States, which were germane to the perusal and consideration of all parties.

Responding, INEC's lawyer, Abubakar Mahmoud, stated that the parties could not agree on documents to be used in evidence during trial because LP's legal team had walked out on the rest of them.

Mahmoud, in addition explained that the petitioners were unable to get documents from Sokoto because they were unwilling to pay the sum of N1.5 million for certification, adding that the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Rivers had already given access to some documents being requested for by the LP.

This statement was corroborated by Tinubu and Shettima's lawyer, Chief Wole Olanipekun, and that of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Lateef Fagbemi.

But, Levi however told the court that the statement of the respondents was not true, adding that such statements amounted to blackmail.

Uzoukwu also denied that the party was refusing to pay for certification, stressing that, "we are ready to pay, any amount."

In a short ruling, the court while observing that the 14 days pre-hearing session of the court expires on May 20, enjoined parties to harmonise all pending applications and fixed May 19 for continuation of pre-hearing in the matter.

However, shortly after the adjournment to Friday, Apapa had wanted to speak with journalists covering the proceedings outside the courtroom but was prevented by the aggrieved supporters who stood in front of television cameras, shoving Apapa and calling him all kinds of names.

Apapa, who was booed and shoved from one point to another by the angry supporters, could no longer speak with the press.

At a point, the angry supporters started pushing him out of the court premises towards the gate before some police officers came to his rescue and took him back into the court.

Apapa had assumed leadership of the LP following a court order suspending Abure from parading himself as National Chairman.

The suspension order by a High Court of the Federal Capital Territory was to pave way for Abure's trial on alleged forgery and corruption charges.

Abure had since appealed the suspension order and has continued to appear with Obi since the proceedings commenced, although he has never introduced himself as the National Chairman of the Labour Party, rather the National Publicity Secretary, Obiora Ifoh has been representing the LP.

Although, the court had since last week being accepting Ifoh, as the representative of the party, it however refused to accept any representative at yesterday's proceedings owing to Apapa and the National Women Leader of the LP, Mrs Dudu Manuga claiming to be representing the LP.

When the matter was called, Obi represented himself as the 1st petitioner and handed over the microphone to Manuga, but before the court could record the name of Manuga, Apapa stood up to introduce himself as National Chairman of the party and representative of the Labour Party.

Responding, Justice Tsammani who observed that, "there is a little disagreement about who is representing the Labour Party", held that, "we are not recognising anybody as representative of the party."

The court subsequently went ahead to take the appearances of