Abure, others, in bed with APC, Apapa-led LP faction alleges

The breakaway group of the Labour Party (LP) led by the former Deputy National Chairman, Apapa Lamidi, has accused Julius Abure, the suspended National Chairman of the Party, Julius Abure and other officials, of being in bed with the governing All Progressives Congress (APC).

The suspended former National Publicity Secretary of the party, Abayomi Arabambi told the media that Abure and other officials used the opportunity of the opposition party as a money-minting front to enrich themselves.

“They just want to deceive the youth of Nigeria to be following their deceptive nature and this was evidence yesterday, they accused our executive of collecting money from APC.

“Yesterday, Akpabio and the deputy Chairman of the APC, went to visit them and they accepted him,” Arabambi told reporters.

Arabambi’s allegation stemmed from a visit on Wednesday to the National Secretariat of the Labour Party in Abuja by some senators reportedly lobbying across political parties for principal offices in the National Assembly.

The former national publicity secretary of the Apapa-led faction had accused Abure and other party officials of accepting N500 million bribes from the visiting lawmakers, an allegation countered by Abure during a briefing on Thursday.

Arabambi queried what the party leadership under Abure was doing with Akpabio’s quest for the Senate President in the 10th Assembly.

He said it was curious that the presidential candidate of the party in the February 25 election, Peter Obi, couldn’t raise N1.5 million to secure the necessary documents from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to cross the hurdle of the pre-hearing matter in its suit against the President – elect Bola Tinubu of the APC.

Arabambi said the issue was suspicious and smirked of ploy to deny the party from defending its matter before the Court on the mandate given to LP presidential candidate, Obi.

According to him, the development which was revealed by the Lead Counsel to Obi, Livy Uzuokwu, was deceptive and a ploy to deny Nigerians the mandate of the party in the presidential election tribunal hearing.

He said if the party led by Abure failed to comply with the court directive on pre-hearing, it may impact negatively on the case of its presidential candidate.

Arabambi said: “Something happened at the election Tribunal yesterday, it is unfortunate that the lead lawyer will write a letter to INEC that they do not have N1,500,000 to pay knowing fully well that the pre hearing session will terminate on Sunday.

“That means if we fail to do the needful, our petition would be dismissed.

“Now what will 13 SAN be doing till April 17 when they were asked to meet INEC, collect all necessary documents only for their lead counsel to say oh, I have just been able to get 30 percent of the documents requested for.

“The INEC led counsel said they invited him on Friday, he said he was at a party. A learned silk, Professor Ananaba went on behalf of them. They asked him to come on Monday, they did not show up, Tuesday, they did not show up, only for them to come to court on Wednesday, where Prof. Livy was asking the court for extension.

“Which the court ruled yesterday, that they will not extend it, in line with the electoral Act, that it will only take 14 days. And they told them the court will not sit on Saturday and Sunday, today is Thursday. We have Friday and Saturday.

“So how do we now work together, how do we get all these documents and so that we can now go to the hearing session because once we fail to cross the hurdle of the hearing session our petition will be dismissed.

“They know what they were doing, how can you say Obi cannot afford N1.5m. They are either working for PDP or working for APC.”

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