The leader of the 17-man caretaker committee of the Edo State Labour Party (LP) and former speaker of Edo State House of Assembly, Hon Elizabeth Ativie, has said that those plotting for the removal of the national chairman of the party, Julius Abure, does not have electoral value and don’t wish the party well.
He said those from Edo State staging protests at the party’s national secretariat insisting that Abure “must go” have never won their units, wards or local government areas and have been influenced by external forces to destabilise the party describing them as ‘clowns’.
Addressing a press conference in Benin City yesterday, the chairman of the LP Caretaker Committee, Mrs Elizabeth Ativie, dismissed those calling for the removal of Abure claiming that they were being sponsored besides the fact that they don’t have the powers to remove him.
She said, “The national chairman in his tenure has recorded a lot of successes, how do you judge a man? Is it by his works and successes and failures? So his successes are more than his failures and of-course we are insiders, we know that some other parties who are not very comfortable with the love of the masses for the Labour Party, are the ones that are igniting problems in the LP. The National Chairman can only be removed by a National Convention, that is what the constitution of the LP says.
“Some say I have come to do an Esan agenda, I don’t know how an Uhunmwonde person that I am will come and do an Esan agenda, I don’t know how I can manufacture an Esan candidate for the Labour Party now, is it possible? Will I not be happy that I produced a governor?
“I wish to vehemently and completely condemn in strong terms the attitude of some persons who invaded the Secretariat of the Labour Party in Abuja recently. The invaders were sponsored by some persons who did not wish the party well. Those protesters were hired to undermine the Labour Party as they were rented from a nearby market in Abuja.
“Barrister Julius Abure, the national chairman of the Labour Party is a jolly good fellow who has moved the party to an enviable height. We were all witnesses when Julius Abure came into office, those who were there battered the party, they fought, went to court and abandoned the party, the national chairman at the state level picked up the piece and pieces of the party and grew the party to the state it is now.”
On the claim by Kelly Ogbaloi that he is still the state chairman, she said, “The tenure of that executive has expired, they have even stayed more than the six years because the law says three years and if you have done so well, you can be re-elected for another three years.”