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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