The National Legal Adviser, Osun State Women Leader, and 11 local government chairmen have all been placed on suspension by the Labour Party (LP) leadership due to alleged anti-party activities.
At the party secretariat in Osogbo, the state capital, yesterday, the party’s leadership spoke to reporters through its Osun State Chairman, Prince Bello Adebayo.
According to Adebayo, the party’s suspended executives attended a factional National Executive Council meeting in Bauchi.
The Osun LP chairman further claimed that some executives and members were paid to sabotage the party’s national and state structures in order to thwart the prosecution of Peter Obi, the party’s presidential candidate.
Without bias, we are all aware that our party is currently dealing with some difficulties on a national level, he remarked. In certain states, this is turning into a crisis. But in Osun State, we have been really fortunate. Despite the antics of some, the party’s state executive has stayed cohesive.
“We cannot deny that some party members have been trying to use the situation at the national level to sow discord and disunity in the Labour Party chapter in Osun State. We also accept that there are people who have excessive ambition, which is causing the party to splinter over time.
“The intention is to establish parallel structures at the federal and state levels to support the nefarious plan to thwart the legal battle to reclaim Mr. Peter Obi and Dr. Datti Baba-Ahmed’s mandate in the 2023 presidential election,” he continued.
“We see that if the actions of these anti-democratic individuals are not promptly controlled, they will either undermine the structure of the Labour Party in Osun or bring it to a complete collapse.
“In light of the aforementioned, the Labour Party’s State Executive Council convened on May 11, 2023, to discuss all the concerns and move forward.
“At the meeting, we decided to declare and assert our allegiance to the National Working Committee of our great party, headed by our duly elected National Chairman Julius Abure, among other things.
“All known card-carrying members of the Labour Party who attended the purported NEC meeting on May 3, 2023, in Bauchi, Bauchi State.
“Samuel Akingbade, National Legal Adviser, Mrs. Susan Ojo, State Women Leader, and 11 chairmen of local governments of our party in Osun State who participated in a meeting organized by the National Legal Adviser and the suspended State Woman Leader are among those named and impacted by this decision. They are hereby expelled from the celebration permanently.
“These members are suspended due to severe misconduct and anti-party behavior. This choice will be communicated to the Labour Party’s National Working Committee and other pertinent organizations, including all security agencies, for further action.