Abure’s Sack: Labour Party vows to appeal judgement

The Julius Abure led faction of the  Labour Party (LP), Wednesday, said it will immediately appeal the judgement of the Abuja Federal High Court, which gave recognition to Nenadi Usman-led Caretaker Committee.

In a judgment delivered by Peter Lifu, the High Court judge on Wednesday, the court declared that the tenure of the Abure-led National Working Committee (NWC) ended in April 2024.

But Obiora Ifoh, the Party’s National Publicity Secretary said the Court had misinterpreted the April 4, 2025, verdict of the Supreme Court to declare validate the leadership of Nenadi Usman, a  former Minister of Finance, who is the head of the Caretaker Committee set up to run the affairs of the party.

He described Usman as a “non registered member of the Labour Party”.

The party held that the judgement was in clear contradiction of the Supreme Court judgement which clearly stated that no court has the power to appoint leadership for any political party and that leadership issue is an internal affairs of the political party.

The party said it is happy that the Federal High Court of the FCT is not the last court, and that the party will go on appeal and put its position before the Court of Appeal.

It noted that  “Although we are yet to see the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the judgment in order to fully make comment about it, our position will become stronger when we see the CTC of the judgement. But generally, from the brief we have gotten so far, it is clear that the party will appeal the judgement.

“Before today’s judgment, we have been suspecting that it may go this way because of the body language around the court. When the matter was first filed, it was assigned to Justice Omotosho and suddenly, there was a sumarsult, as another matter was filed which was material and the one sent to Omotosho was withdrawn and now sent to Justice Peter Lifu. That was a red flag for us.

“Secondly, the court refused us the opportunity to respond to issues raised in the counter affidavit filed by other parties and quickly adjourned for judgement. That was the second red flag.

“Our adversaries were all over the places, jubilating weeks before, over a judgement that has not been delivered, telling everyone that they have already won. The jubilation by our adversaries was all over the social media, that come today the judiciary will hand over the party to Dr. Alex Otti.

The party also noted  that the Court of Appeal had pronounced Julius Abure’s National Working Committee as the authentic leadership of the party.

That pronouncement was what Nenadi Usman took to the Supreme Court to say that the courts (Federal High Court and Appeal Court) were wrong to have pronounced somebody as the Chairman of the Party.

“Ironically, today, a Federal High Court has sumarsulted and pronounced somebody as the Caretaker National Chairman of a party. So what is the judiciary turning into?

“To us, that was a clear contradiction against what the Supreme Court said. Secondly, the Supreme Court said that all matters that have to do with the leadership of the political party are internal affairs of the party and that has been the position of the Supreme Court.

The party, while noting that the courts have severely declined jurisdiction on matters that have to do with internal affairs of political parties, wondered why with another  breath, ” the court said the Caretaker Committee was properly set up, in another breath, the court said, it was an internal affair of a political party. In any event, the court was even wrong to be interpreting the decision of the Supreme Court.

” Even the Supreme Court never said that our tenure has expired. The supreme Court simply declined jurisdiction in entertaining the matter because it was an internal affairs of the party.

The party argued that tenure of the executive had never expired, adding ” The tenure of the executive was to expire in June 2024 but the National Convention was held in March, 2024 before the expiration of the then executive, which created the present leadership of the party. So for the court to have stated that the tenure has expired and a vacuum created are all laughable.”

“It is curious at how this court arrived at holding that there was a vacuum in the leadership of the party when it didn’t go into the validity and legality of the national convention of the party held on March 27, 2024.

The party however urged its members to remain calm as the leadership will do everything within the laws to ensure that justice is served for the interest of the party. It warned that the party is not for sale and no amount of financial power will make us abdicate ourleadership position in the party.

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