Abure dissolves Obi, Otti-backed Abia LP leadership

The Julius Abure-led National Working Committee (NWC) faction of the Labour Party (LP) has announced the dissolution of the Abia State Interim Working Committee (SWC).

The announcement was contained in a letter addressed to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) dated Monday, October 14, 2024. Jointly signed by Abure and his National Secretary, Umar Ibrahim, the letter also appointed a 15-member Caretaker Committee headed by Dr G. O. Ndubueze to run the party’s affairs.

They informed that the appointment of the interim committee for the only state the party controls was with immediate effect. According to the Abure-led NWC, the newly appointed caretaker committee would be in place for three months within which a substantive leadership would be enthroned.

“In exercise of the power bestowed upon it by the Labour Party Constitution, Article 13(3)b(vi) to dissolve and reconstitute SECs and SWCs where necessary, pending the next state congress, the NWC hereby dissolves and appoints a caretaker committee to pilot the affairs of the party in Abia,” the letter reads.

The Guardian gathered that the party had, on September 4, 2024, been thrown into an open leadership crisis, following the supplanting of the Abure-led NWC with the Nenadi Usman-led 29-man Interim National Committee. Before then, the party had been sharply divided, following its Nnewi National Convention in March, which reportedly gave Abure tenure to lead the party.

The convention was, however, not attended by majority of the party’s stakeholders, including its 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi; his running mate, Yusuf Datti-Ahmed; Governor  Otti of Abia, the only governor elected on its platform, the National Assembly caucus of the party and others.

They unanimously and overwhelmingly accused the Abure leadership of not carrying them along in the countdown to the convention. The pre-convention disagreement was to snowball into a full-blown crisis.

The situation was, however, exacerbated by the refusal of INEC to do business with the Abure-led NWC. The electoral umpire had insisted that the tenure of the Abure’s NWC elapsed in June this year.

Faced with mounting threats of the party relapsing, major stakeholders led by Obi and Otti had to convene the September 4 enlarged NEC meeting in Umuahia.
But the Usman-led committee was rejected by Abure, who insisted on the mandate given to his leadership in Nnewi.

Only last Wednesday, October, 9, an Abuja Federal High Court validated the controversial Nnewi convention, declaring the outcome as authentic. However, conveners of the Umuahia enlarged stakeholders’ meeting has gone on appeal to challenge the trial court’s ruling, a development the Abure group described as null and void.