THE National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Labour Party (LP) on Monday announced the removal of the National Chairman of the party, Alhaji Abubakar Abdukadir Salam, and his replacement with the party’s National Vice Chairman (South South), Comrade Bobo Atare Adou as Acting Chairman.
The NEC, which met in Abuja, also announced the removal of the party’s Deputy National Chairman (South) Mr Calistus Okafor, and that Acting National Secretary, Barr Julius Abure.
A communiqué released at the end of the emergency NEC meeting indicated that Barrister Akingbade Oyelekan has also been named the Acting National Secretary of the Labour Party.
Deputy National Chairman of (North) of LP, Alhaji Ali Abatcha, who endorsed the communiqué alongside the Deputy National Youth Leader, Gbenga Daramola and the Deputy National Woman Leader Lami Ahmed, said that the emergency NEC took the decision to save the Labour Party of
crisis and make it a vibrant opposition.
But the National Publicity Secretary of the Party, Mrs Ebere Ifendu, said that those who constituted the NEC were not known to the party.
She said that the LP remains intact, adding that some forces seeking to engineer the defection of Senator Omo Agege from the party.
“We are not aware of the people that constituted the NEC. The LP remains intact and we are going to resist the attempt to divide us,” she said.
The Communiqué issued on Monday indicated that Salam and the two others will remain “suspended/removed forthwith from office,” pending the outcome of internal investigations by the Party.
According to the Communiqué, the affairs of the LP has been mismanaged since the October 11, 2014 National Convention of our the Party held in Akure, Ondo State.
The stakeholders also accused the removed chairman of persistent impunity, high-handedness, dictatorship, and crudeness, which they said had led to unjust, unconstitutional and unilateral dissolution of States Executive Committees (SECs) of the Party as well as suspension of a number of prominent members.