The leadership of the Labour Party has condemned a statement by its former vice presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections,Datti Baba-Ahmed, who said President Bola Tinubu’s government is ‘questionably constitutional’.
The rebuttal, signed by the National Publicity Secretary of LP, Dr Arabambi Abayomi, was issued to newsmen on Saturday in Kaduna by the party’s National Secretary, Umar Ibrahim.
Abayomi said the LP viewed the comment as undemocratic, therefore dissociating itself from any surreptitious action capable of inciting Nigerians against the present government.
PUNCH Online reports that Baba-Ahmed called on President Bola Tinubu to give up contesting in the 2027 presidential election, advising that his time is up as Nigerians would demand for true democracy in 2027.
He said said the party approached the 2023 general elections with all the determination to make a difference in the way Nigeria was run.
The scribe also recalled that the party had sponsored candidates it believed at the time could win elections.
He also recalled that the result of the 2023 presidential election didn’t go its way, and the party challenged the result up to the Supreme Court and lost.
“For the interest and peace of the nation, the Labour Party accepted the judgment of the Supreme Court.
“This was not because we were pleased but because of the finality of the Supreme Court’s judgment. The party has since moved on,” he said.
Abayomi lamented that the party was astonished by the illegal and unconstitutional meeting called by Gov. Alex Otti of Abia and Peter Obi on April 9 in Abuja.
He said that at the meeting, Baba-Ahmed still referred to the 2023 presidential election as ‘questionably constitutional’ even with the legitimacy conferred on the Tinubu’s government by the Supreme Court.
Abayomi also alleged that Baba-Ahmed, in an interview with a national television, said, “The appointments they are making are fake and illegal.
“The paraphernalia of government they are enjoying, destroying our country, spending our money, is only for a little time.”
He, therefore, said for them at the party, such statement was clearly inciting and a call for mass action against a constituted authority.
Abayomi said, “We think there should be a limit to whipping up the public sentiments against a legitimate government.
“There was also the persistent galvanisation of the youths against their governments leading into the mass demonstrations, revolts, and revolutions that almost consumed the region.”
He recalled that Baba-Ahmed, while refusing to concede victory in the 2023 presidential election, also alleged that Tinubu’s government harboured a grand scheme to dismember Nigeria into six, possibly autonomous zones.
He had also alleged that the administration had thrown Nigerians into untold hardship.
All these, Abayomi said, were efforts to whip up sentiments against the government.
He emphasised that Nigeria was presently passing through a dangerous and precarious phase.
According to him, this needs every well-meaning Nigerian to realise the fragility of the nation by putting politics aside and help to move the nation out of the woods.
Abayomi maintained that the leadership of LP had stated clearly that it was within the right of every Nigerian to hold the government accountable for its inability to live up to the expectation.
He, however, said statements that were inciting and capable of plunging the nation into unwarranted combustion, particularly by the political class, must be avoided.
“The Labour Party under the able leadership of Mr Julius Abure, therefore, wishes to completely dissociate itself from the unfortunate and reprehensible comments by its former vice presidential candidate,” he said.
Similarly, Abayomi said the party also viewed the alleged comment by Otti of a possible ‘doomsday’ awaiting the Julius Abure-led leadership as a direct threat to the lives of the party’s executive members.
He called on all the security agencies to beef up security around their leaders.
(NAN)
