The leadership of the Labour Party has distanced its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, from allegation that he called for the postponement of May 29 inauguration ceremony for the swearing-in of the president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
The rebuttal was issued in Abuja on Thursday
by the party’s Acting National Publicity Secretary, Obiora Ifoh.
Recall that the Lamidi Apapa-led faction of
LP has disclosed that his camp was not among the party members calling for a
shift in Tinubu’s swearing in, pending the determination of the petitions
before the Presidential Election Tribunal sitting in Abuja.
According to him, he has always been of the
opinion that the inauguration “may not have any impact on the ongoing legal
tussle on the presidential election involving our party, APC and INEC.”
Lamidi, who spoke through the faction’s image
maker, Abayomi Arabambi, posited that the Electoral Act and the Constitution of
Nigeria did not give room for a vacuum.
He said, “What Peter Obi is crying for is not
supported by the law. A refusal to swear-in Tinubu as President on May 29, will
create a vacuum in the system, saying the law does not allow this.
“Even Peter Obi once benefitted from the
system of being sworn into office despite pending petitions filed against him
before the tribunal by Andy Uba. The law has to be complied with, which is to
swear in Tinubu as president, and if anybody wants to change the narrative,
they will have to change the law.
“So whether the president-elect is sworn in
or not, there is right to remove him legally if it is found out that he was not
duly elected.”
Reacting to his claim in a statement titled
“Apapa’s statement on ‘swearing in’ reflecting ‘Hand of Esau, Voice of Jacob’”,
Ifoh denied that his principal ever raised such issue whether in a private or
public conversation.
While alluding that the real enemies of the
party are beginning to unfold, the LP acting spokesman noted that no amount of
hatchet can distract Obi from reclaiming his mandate.
He said, “In all Peter Obi’s public and
private statements, he has never said or by implication, insinuated that May 29
should be shifted. He is a democrat and he is one person that believes so much
in the judiciary as the last arbiter, and that is why he has resorted to the
court to seek justice.
“I had refused to join issues with the
expelled former acting National Publicity Secretary of Labour Party, Abayomi
Arabambi and the suspended Deputy National Chairman, Lamidi Apapa on their
mischievous narratives of the ‘May 29 handover’ to INEC’s declared winner of
the presidential election. The Labour Party actually does not want to comment
on the matter which hearing has since commenced at the presidential appeal
tribunal.
“However, the text of the statement which was
read as commercial in about three television stations in prime time hours
suggests that the real sponsors of the crisis in the Labour Party would stop at
nothing in ensuring that they sustain the imbroglio.
“Few weeks ago, you will recall how we
alerted Nigerians to plots by this faction to withdraw the cases filed by some
of our candidates in the tribunals, allegations they are yet to exonerate
themselves. Part of their plots to scuttle the ongoing presidential tribunal as
shamelessly boasted by Arabambi is to desecrate the sanctity of the tribunal
venue on the next adjourned date with Lamidi Alaba forcing himself to appear as
a representative of the Labour Party.
“Nigerians already know that you are
sponsored to work against the presidential ambition of Peter Obi. No one is in
doubt about Apapa camp’s altruistic ambition to remain a destructive agent in
the Labour Party.”
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