Following last Saturday's by-elections into state and national assemblies of the federation which the Labour Party was excluded from participating in, the acting national chairman of the party, Sen. Nenadi Usman, has sent a passionate message of hope to party faithfuls across the country and Nigerians in general.
Undaunted and surging in spirit, Sen. Nenadi, who has twice been unanimously invested by the highest constitutional organs of the party as its acting national chairman side by side an interim executive council, has reacted to the August 16th by-elections in which the ruling APC swept 12 out of 16 contested parliamentary seats across 13 states of the federation.
The Labour Party itself and many observers of the elections have since described the elections as a "violent heist and daylight fraud by the ruling APC."
In a statement issued through the party's interim national publicity secretary, Prince Tony Akeni, Sen. Nenadi said, "It is regrettable that the protracted leadership crises of our party was consciously orchestrated by the defunct national chairman of our party, Mr. Julius Abure, and his collaborating tenure members to sabotage the party's participation in last Saturday's elections. They proved once more by these by-elections that as usual, they were on yet another unabashed mission to destroy our party's strong electoral potentials on behalf of their well-known paymasters."
The statement further read, "The brazen exclusion of Labour Party at the 11th hour without the courtesy of advance warning or an illuminating briefing by INEC was a direct plot between Abure and his paymasters, using the electoral umpire to execute the conspiracy. This condemnable plot was long coming and meticulously hatched because the ruling APC rightly considers the Labour Party a veritable threat to its low ballot standing with the Nigerian people, knowing that in free and fair polls anywhere in this nation, our party will overwhelmingly triumph over their candidates," Sen. Nenadi said.
The national chairman's statement continued: "Going forward, on behalf of the Labour Party's institutional Board of Trustees, National Executive Council (NEC), National Working Committee (NWC), all serving, loyal, elected and steadfastly standing members of our party at all levels of government throughout Nigeria, I wish to express our heartfelt message of comfort and consolation to all LP candidates who had prepared hitherto to contest the by-elections of August 16 but were denied the opportunity at the last hour. We know that given a level playing ground, with your sterling qualities as candidates and our party's masses serving ideology, you were poised to win and some of you overwhelmingly.
"We feel your pains knowing that you prepared at much cost, suffered the rigours of campaigns, assets mobilization, logistics losses and psychological trauma as you were, at the last minute, denied your constitutional rights and opportunities to contest the elections by the tripartite conspiracy of Abure's expired council and INEC's delayed interpretation and execution of the Supreme Court judgment of April 4, following the scripts of their common masters.
"We call on you to remain steadfast to the call, cause and concourse of the Labour Party's unmatched masses driven ideology for good governance. Remain steadfast and ready to fight another day. Through your clear-headed manifestos, which are undoubtedly a reflection of the Peter Obi ideology for good governance delivery and a Nigeria that works for all, Nigeria shall be free one day, and that day is not far away.
"To prepare for that day," Sen. Nenadi continued, "our council is doing everything necessary to have INEC fully, unequivocally and expeditiously recognize the brand new leadership of the Labour Party, ready and ship-shape for all elections here forward. This is so that the ballot apartheid and franchise robbery that excluded LP candidates from the August 16th by-elections of our country will never re-occur in any manner. Never again.
"Let me assure you that this message to you is endorsed by the apex leaders of our party, His Excellency Peter Obi, Sen. Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, His Excellency Governor Alex Otti, all serving Senators, House of Representatives and other elected members of our great party. Together, I urge you to work sincerely and cogently with goal-getting urgency in repositioning our party for the 2027 elections ahead.
"Our country is in dire dangers in multiple fronts from the havocs of misrule, pandemic insecurity, corruption and marathon foreign borrowings in a reckless manner primed to olunge our present and future generations into epic macro-economic suicide. Having that in view, let us work as one to salvage our party's lost opportunities, redeem our stolen progress and regain our once hard-earned acres of Papa-Mama-Pikin political space. Let us ride the tides once again into the hearts of Nigerians to re-invent and attain the indomitable mass appeal that frightened hell out of Nigeria's enemies in 2023, this time for unquestionable and unstoppable victory, and take leadership of our country in the nearest future.
Addressing constitutional affiliates of the Labour Party, Sen. Nenadi called on organized labour, civil society groups and the pro-democracy community of Nigeria to rally round the clarion for the political liberation of Nigeria.
She stated, "Throughout our country, the Labour Party is the one and only true home for all unions under the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and civil society movements for good governance. For you and your children, it is where your labours and entitlements, in-service and out-of-service life as workers and advocates of good governance, best thrive.
"I will freely admit this. Labour Party alone cannot liberate Nigeria. So, today our party opens her doors and arms to all unions and democracy movements throughout our country for a save-Nigeria partnership. I invite you to form with us a collective 'Salvation Army' for the rescue of our country.
"Some of you have fought valiantly for society's rights but alone, isolated, divided and repeatedly defeated for years, some even decades but without result. In all your fights, leadership in Nigeria has only grown worse. Because something is missing. The collective fist to face Nigeria's enemy of monstrous corruption and and arrested development. That is what the new Labour Party now provides. A collective push, thrust and vanquish.
"Fighting alone as isolated unions, lone wolves or activists, however good your cause and goals may be, will not and has not accomplished our common desire for the Nigeria of our dream. But fighting united as one for the journey to 2027, we can never be defeated no matter the obstacles the ruling powers throw our way.
"I therefore call on our exponential torchbearers of the civil rights advocacy space in our country, including leaders of various religions. I call on the eminent SAN Femi Falana, the younger generation such as Omoyele Sowore, Deji Adeyanju, Inibehe Effiong and hosts of others across our country to find their way to my door at the Labour Party. The hour is especially fortuitous as our party braces for transparent, all-inclusive congresses and national convention. My doors for sincere alliances and partnership for the liberation of our country are open for this partnership and lit with floodlights 24hours.
"I share this information with the consciousness that as the age-old Washington Post slogan goes, "democracy dies in the dark." Unlike the LP of the immediate past, there are no dark rooms, back doors or casinos for transactional agendas, conspiracy and fraud against well-meaning Nigerians, professionals, candidates, joiners and members old or new. Only plain, open-door interface with all who come with a genuine heart committed to the rescue of our great country from the present abyss of misrule, harrowing insecurity and excruciating man-made, poverty which have enveloped our country with paralysing despair," the statement concluded.
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