A former National Organising Secretary of the Labour Party, Clement Ojukwu, has lamented that the numerous court cases filed against the party since the 2023 general elections have negatively affected its performance.
Ojukwu, who recently rejoined the interim National Working Committee headed by Senator Esther Nenadi Usman, noted that the party secured 34 seats in the House of Representatives, eight in the Senate, and 80 seats across various state Houses of Assembly following the 2023 polls.
“Now we lost all of them,” he said. “I don’t think we have as many as five members in the National Assembly.”
The former LP NOS talked to journalists in Abuja and said he chose to join the caretaker committee led by Nenadi because they are now the officially recognized leaders of the Labour Party.
“I chose to work with the caretaker committee to help save the Labor Party, for the benefit of the party. I also want to use this chance to ask my colleagues at the national, state, and local government levels to come together and help rebuild our party.
“Another election is around the corner. We lost everything we have. They have left to other political parties. So I’ll reach out to all my friends in the other group to get together and work on making this party stronger again.
“The caretaker committee has formed a reconciliation committee. Let’s come together and talk so that we can restore the first opposition political party in Nigeria.”
Ojukwu, who was part of Julius Abure’s group, said there are no more factions in the Labour Party. He added, “There is a court ruling, and since it is valid, the right people are in the correct positions.”
He urged Abure and others to drop the legal cases they have filed because they are not helping the party.
“Litigations are killing political parties. He said they’ve seen many political parties disappear because of legal battles, and the Labor Party is losing support every day, which makes him feel sad.”
Ojukwu said he did not think joining Senator Usman’s NWC was a betrayal of the Abure group. He called himself “the oxygen of that particular faction.
“I’m with this group because of the verdict. But I never betrayed anybody. Rather, I was betrayed,” he added.