Labour Party Crisis Deepens as Court Okays Factional Leader’s Fresh Suit

* Judge orders substituted service

Sunday Aborisade in Abuja

A Federal High Court in Abuja has ordered that the Labour Party (LP) and some of its officials be served with a fresh suit pertaining to its leadership crisis through substituted means.
The judge, Inyang Ekwo, made the order on Monday after hearing an ex parte application filed by a former deputy national chairman of the party, Calistus Okafor.
In the court order seen by THISDAY on Wednesday, the judge ordered that the defendants be served through the pasting of the court documents filed by the plaintiff at the LP’s secretariat in Abuja within seven days.
Okafor, a factional leader of the party, is by his suit, challenging the legality of the leadership of Akingbade Oyelakin, whom he said “represents persons wrongfully and unlawfully parading themselves as members of the National Working Committee (NWC) of Labour Party”.
He also joined the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as co-defendant.
Others sued by Okafor include Julius Abure and Umar Farouq, who emerged as the national chairman and the secretary of the party respectively, at a national executive committee meeting of the party held in Benin, Edo State, in March 2021.
The rest of the defendants sued by the defendants are members of the committee set up by the Naigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to take over the affairs of the party. 
The committee members are Salisu Mohammed, Lawson Osagie, Isa Aremu, Baba Aye, Ikpe Ektokudo, Sylvester Ejiofor, and Lucy Offiong. Sued along with them are one Salamatu Aliyu and the NLC.
The court, in its order issued on Monday, ordered a “substituted service of the originating summons, interlocutory injunction, and all other processes in this suit on the 1st to 3rd, 6th to 12th and 14th defendants by pasting the said processes at their political party’s office, which is the 5th defendant’s office, located  at No 2, Oke Agbe Street, Off Ladoke Akintoal Boulevard, Garki 11, Abuja”.
The first to third defendants are Abure, Farouq and Oyelakin. The sixth to the 12th defendants are the members of the NLC committee and the 14th defendant is Aliyu.
The court ordered that the service must be effected “within seven days of this order”.
The judge then adjourned the case until June 30 “for further mention”.
THISDAY had reported how Okafor threatened to file the suit and how the legal action might threaten the presidential ambition of former Governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, who left the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) last week and announced his readiness to pursue his presidential aspiration in the LP faction led by Abure.
However, Okafor told THISDAY that Obi decided to defect to LP without proper information on the fact that the party’s leadership had been a subject of litigation since 2018.
Okafor claimed that he remained the authentic national chairman of the party.
He explained that he got the post by virtue of his position as Deputy National Chairman of the party when the late national chairman, Abdulsalam, was in office, adding that Abure, who is currently leading a faction of the party, was Acting National Secretary when Abdulsalam died in 2020.
Okafor further claimed that Abure announced himself as the national chairman without recourse to the provisions of the party’s constitution, following Abdulsalam’s demise. He said the LP constitution stipulated that the deputy national chairman should act and/or replace the chairman in the event of death or resignation.
Okafor said: “The decision of Abure to make himself chairman, with the active collaboration of some members, actually led to the current leadership crisis in the LP.
“I, Calistus Okafor, approached the court to get a pronouncement to force Abure out and the case has been pending.
“The matter will come up tomorrow (today) at the Federal High Court. There is no way we would allow an Acting National Secretary to forcefully take over the party and replace the late national chairman against the provisions of the constitution of the party.
“The NLC and the TUC actually registered the Labour Party in 2006, but they were not the ones administering it.
“Peter Obi, at the moment, has been deceived and he is sitting on a keg of gunpowder and it is a pity. He went to wolves in sheep clothing thinking he was discussing with the right people. Staying in the PDP would have been better for him.
“The LP has not done any convention since 2014, after the last one it did in Akure, the Ondo State capital.”