The National Chairman of the Labour Party (LP) Julius Abuse has said the invasion of the party’s secretariat by the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) was a show of shame, rascality, abuse of office and of the law of the land.
The NLC on Wednesday led workers to the party secretariat to protest the planned convention of the party slated for March 27, in Umuahia, Abia State capital.
In a statement on Thursday by the acting National Publicity Secretary of the Labour Party, Obiora Ifoh, Abure said the party informed all the stakeholders including the NLC.
Abure said he had discussions with the President of the NLC, Joe Ajaero on several occasions over the convention.
The Labour Party chairman alleged that Ajaero had an ulterior motive, saying the leadership of the party would not allow him (Ajaero) to hijack the party.
The statement said: “What we saw was a show of shame, a show of rascality, an abuse of office and an abuse of the law of the land.
“Nigeria Labour congress is subject to the law. NLC under Joe Ajaero is not above the law and the law precludes Ajaero and the leadership of NLC from taking law into their hands. Where they besieged the office, broke the fence, destroyed the gates, unlawfully took possession of the Secretariat and destroyed properties worth millions of naira. Properties stolen including monies made for the payment of salaries and other official purposes. This is unfortunate. It is becoming unbecoming.
“I must state today that the leadership of NLC under Joe Ajaero is on the part of destroying the successes we have recorded in the 2023 general election.
“I had expected that as a responsible trade union centre, a responsible labour leader; he should have teamed up with the Labour Party to see how we can team up together to make the country better. Unfortunately and ironically too, the NLC is the one that is on warpath against the Labour Party.
“I must state clearly that Ajaero as NLC President has not been able to organise a successful strike action. Not even a single protest or even picketing government establishment in order to bring the government to accede to the numerous requests of workers. As we speak, there are unfair labour practices meted out to workers by several organisations in the country. I have not seen Joe Ajaero go to such organisations to picket them.
“Over the past few years, NLC has been claiming ownership of the Labour Party. l must state clearly that NLC is not the owner of Labour Party. The party is not owned by NLC. The law is very clear that you cannot picket an organisation where you do not have your workers. We are not the employers of NLC and they don’t have the legitimate reason to picket our office.
“We have no trade union dispute with NLC, there is no notice issued to us that we have a trade union dispute with NLC. This is clearly an abuse of office and abuse of the laws of the land.
“Let me also state here that the propaganda they have been carrying around that we are planning a secret convention is totally false. The NEC met in April 2023 in Asaba and granted the permission that the convention must hold in one year. We started planning for the Convention since then. We communicated with INEC as requested by the law. We have also informed all the stakeholders including NLC. I have discussed the issue with Ajaero on several occasions. NLC on their own has written to INEC on several occasions on the need to hold the convention, we are surprised that the same INEC is the one that is asking that convention should not hold again. He has ulterior motives and we will not allow him to hijack the party.”