By Chukwudi Nweje
Dr. Yunusa Tanko, a former Presidential Candidate of the National Conscience Party (NCP), one of the political parties that came together under the National Consultative Front (NCFront) movement that dissolved into the Labour Party (LP) ahead of the 2023 general elections is one of the spokespersons of the Peter Obi-Datti Baba Ahmed Presidential Campaign Organisation.
In this interview, he discussed the leadership issues in the LP and noted that Lamidi Apapa and his cohorts infiltrated the LP to cause havoc among other issues.
As the Labour Party (LP) pursues its case before the Election Petition Tribunal, it is observed that the party is also facing another battle in the leadership tussle between Julius Abure and Lamidi Apapa; some people believe that Apapa is sponsored by the APC?
What is happening in the LP between Abure and Apapa is not a leadership tussle but an attempt by individuals who infiltrated the LP and are being paid to do a hatchet job to destroy our party. Article 17 of the LP Constitution is clear that you cannot remove the chairman except you call a national convention of the party specifically for that purpose. Looking at this provision of the LP’s constitution, some people who claim to be members of the LP do not even know the party’s constitution. Regarding the issue of forgery, I think the judge who made that ruling made an error because when you give an exparte order, it is supposed to last for about one week and it is supposed to be in defence of the office holder, and not for those trying to cause mayhem. Nevertheless, the substantive matter will be heard on May 12 when we believe the case will be dispensed with and these characters will fizzile out of the system. As far as we in the LP are concerned, the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) are concerned, Julius Abure is the substantive National Chairman of the LP and we are solidly behind him. At the Asaba convention, Abure was given the mandate and additional one year tenure extension.
On the issue of Apapa withdrawing the petition at the Election Tribunal, I will tell you that Apapa and his cohorts don’t have the locus standi to withdraw the case because firstly, they are not the legitimate leadership of the party, and secondly, the case in question has two plaintiffs, the first plaintiff is Peter Obi and the second plaintiff is Labour Party, so Apapa or any other person other than the two plaintiffs cannot withdraw the case.
The LP rejected the outcome of the 2023 Presidential Election on the grounds of flawed process among other things, what are some of the problems?
The February 25 Presidential Election left a lot of undesirable outcomes that gave rise to the level of litigations. Three elections were held on February 25, 2023, the results of two were announced according to the rules set by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) but surprisingly, the result of the major election of that day, the Presidential Election, was not announced according to the rules. The failure of INEC to follow its own rules created doubts in the minds of the local and international observers as well as the electorate that voted.
The INEC said that the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machines would be used for accreditation of voters while results from the election would be transmitted electronically in real time and viewed on the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV). However, INEC deliberately prevented the results of the presidential election from being uploaded to their server or viewed on the IReV. These technologies that INEC failed to utilise were what gave hundreds of thousands of Nigerian youths the hope that the process would be free and fair.
The BVAS worked because Nigerians were accredited by the machines and its use prevented over-voting. However, by deliberately not uploading the results from the Presidential Election and using the IReV, INEC gave room for voters to question its integrity.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed ran abroad and told the international community that the electoral commission deliberately decided not to use the IReV, but, he was contradicted by the INEC, the administrator of the election, who claimed that they suffered technical glitches; this claim is yet to be proved beyond reasonable doubt because we believe that they deliberately sabotaged the IReV to manipulate the election and pronounce an unpopular presidential candidate as winner. This has led to doubt in the minds of the Nigerian electorate and created questions on the legitimacy of the president-elect announced by INEC.
The LP emerged third on the INEC result score sheet, but one thing is certain, the LP came from obscurity and changed the narrative of Nigeria’s electoral process, what accounted for this, was it the Peter Obi phenomenon or what?
The truth is that the movement for the emancipation of the Nigerian people had been on for the last 30 years though it has not been actualised. What happened was that Nigerian leaders of thought like Prof Pat Utomi, Dr Obiageli Ezekwesile, Femi Falana SAN, and others were meeting and consulting under the banner of the National Consultative Forum (NCFront) on how to rescue Nigeria; the meeting provided a lot of opportunity for discussions among Nigerian people on how to work together to give the country a new leadership direction. I was the Chief Spokesman of the group, while Wale Okunniyi was the Director General. The group was almost getting ready to float a new political party, but some technical issues at that time prevented that. We, therefore, set up a committee that interfaced with all the political parties in Nigeria except the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) both of who we saw as the greatest enemies of Nigeria. I was the Secretary of that Committee and along the line, some of us moved out; but in the long run, we ended up working closely with the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), then under the leadership of Ayuba Wabba and Quadiri Olaleye, then President of Trade Union Congress (TUC) who came together under the intervention of Femi Falana and agreed on revamping and rejuvenating the Labour Party as a vehicle to drive our quest to emancipate Nigeria. Fortunately, for us, Julius Abure the National Chairman of Labour Party agreed to work with us, fortunately too, Mr Peter Obi joined the LP in time and won the Presidential ticket of the party during the presidential primary in Asaba.
So, it is a combination of the efforts of many people who are committed to the movement for the emancipation of Nigeria, but we will say thank you to Peter Obi and the Obi-Dient Movement for giving the LP more bite and more popularity than it used to have. We also thank all those who played one role or the other in ensuring that the LP became the bride of the Nigerian people and the emancipator; it is not just one person but a combination of people that played the role to propel the LP to prominence.
The position of the Vice presidential candidate of the LP, Dr. Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed against inaugurating the President-elect, Bola Tinubu of the APC while election petitions are pending at the tribunal is being re-echoed by other prominent Nigerians, what do you say about that?
We have a constitution and it says you must meet a certain prerequisite to stand for the election ab initio let alone to be declared the winner of the said election, that was all that Dr. Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed said; he did not say anything more than that; his position is that we must follow the 1999 Constitution, and that if we follow the constitution, we should be able to know what to do and what not to do. In this case, INEC did not follow the provisions of the constitution. The LP won the Federal Capital Territory Abuja and that signifies the popularity of the LP. If I may borrow the words of our Presidential candidate, Peter Obi, ‘we must stop all these illegality and rascality’ because it is not helping Nigeria; if one were to publish the real result from the February 25 presidential election, one will discover that Peter Obi came first not the third allocated to him by INEC. Nigerian leaders like to go abroad to enjoy all the goodies there because the rules and regulations are obeyed, so why don’t we like to obey rules and regulations in Nigeria?
The LP has made a big statement with the 2023 general elections, how do you intend to sustain and improve on the 2023 gains?
The LP is working on improving on its structures nationwide. We have concluded our governorship primaries in Kogi and Imo States and we have credible candidates for the November 11 elections who will further build the structures of the party down the line. At the same time, the NLC is encouraging its members to pick up membership forms of the LP and become fully integrated, that way we will have more working class people in the party apart from all other politicians who have found the LP to be a better and more credible political party.
Do you have any mechanisms in place to guard against your elected officials dumping the LP and defecting to other political stables, especially the ruling APC?
Presently, what we are doing is to inculcate the spirit of the labour movement in each member of the party. We are training our elected officials to know what the LP stands for in terms of our ideology, principles and what we intend to deliver in government; that is why we will conduct a retreat for our elected officials; for the National Assembly members-elect, we will train them on our expectations and ensure that they always speak with one voice.