The Director General of the Labour Party (LP) Presidential Campaign Council, Akin Osuntokun, has hit out at the acting national chairman of the party, Lamidi Apapa following their clash.
Osuntokun while giving his view on the drama that played out between himself and Apapa at the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal (PEPT) on Wednesday said the latter is obsessed with recognition.
“As a matter of fact, the incident started from me. Our protocol lady usually reserves a four-seater for us, myself, [Peter] Obi and anybody… the party chairman,” Osuntokun said on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
“I think the man is obsessed with recognition because when they were there, that was the first question he came up with.
“When I was sitting, he led his gang of people to come to me that ‘he wants to sit where I am sitting’.
“I said, ‘I don’t know you.’ He said, ‘Don’t you know me?’ I said, ‘Who are you?’ That was what he said: ‘You know me! ‘Who are you?’ I said, ‘Well, I know you but that should be as a nuisance.
“If you keep on pressing it upon me that you know me, it is an aspect of the criminalisation of politics in Nigeria today.”
Apapa and Osuntokun clashed at the Appeal Court on Wednesday with both men seen in a viral video arguing over a seat at the Tribunal sitting in Abuja.
Moments after the heated exchange, Apapa was whisked out of the courtroom by police officers amid boos from the LP supporters outside.
The Labour Party has been immersed in a leadership tussle with Apapa getting a court ruling last week as acting chairman pending the determination of the party’s leadership lawsuit by a federal high court.
Meanwhile, the spokesperson for the LP Presidential Campaign Council, Tanko Yunusa, said Apapa is not acting in the interest of Obi and the Nigerian people.
“Let me just explain that what Mr Apapa is trying to do is to have a coup d’état against the will and the interest of the Nigerian people especially that of the Labour Party,” Tanko said.
“That also shows you that they are not interested. They came with the intention of causing drama in court.”
