- Appeals to Peter Obi to make LP a stronger opposition to checkmate ruling party
From Noah Ebije, Kaduna
A former Labour Party (LP) presidential aspirant and leader of the Rescue Movement for New Nigeria, an NGO, Faduri Oluwadare Joseph, has appealed to factional groups in the party to bury the hatchet, allow peace to reign in the opposition party for the betterment of Nigeria.
Two factional groups respectively led by Julius Abure and Apapa Lamidi have been claiming supremacy over the national chairmanship of the party, resulting in legal suits against one another.
In a visual (Zoom) press conference on Tuesday, Joseph expressed worry over the leadership crisis rocking the Labour Party, saying enough is enough, just as he appealed to the 2023 Presidential candidate of the party, Mr. Peter Obi to ensure that the party does not collapse, but to remain stronger as an alternative opposition party in the country.
He said, “Enough is enough! Let’s bury the hatchet and work together for the purpose of bringing good governance to our nation. This is a nation in my own slogan, “where we have everything but we lack everything”.
“It is time to call off the fight, stop the factions and start a new party that can take on our responsibility of true opposition party that will go ahead to rescue power to fix our nation in the long run.
“I still believe in Nigeria that someday our nation will be the greatest nation on earth, not America, not Russia, not any other country, but someday Nigeria will be great and great Again
“At this junction, it is time to say enough is enough. These leaders, if they can’t sit and find common ground and if Peter Obi cannot broker peace between all these worrying parties, should leave the Party and let us the younger generation pick up the pieces and put it together for the betterment of our country and our nation.
“I am glad that finally, the NLC which is the parent body of LP has since risen to her responsibility of not allowing Abure and the gang of other factions to destroy the only party Nigerians are looking up to for hope, for recovery and for a viable alternative.
“But much more than that I am calling on everyone involved in this party especially all the Stakeholders, that if they care about this nation and care about Nigerians, not just their personal and selfish interests they should drop their hatchets and sue for peaceful resolution. They should stop all these disturbing issues we have been parading in public for over a year now and let us put this house in order.
“Enough is Enough. If Mr Peter Obi cannot bring the Party together he should leave. I call on all well-meaning Nigerians with a genuine heart to rescue our Party so we can rescue this nation. Nigerians need us. Our nation needs us. The founding fathers of this nation must be crying in their graves. This is not the nation they fought for. M.K.O Abiola who fought for democracy must be weeping in his grave that this is not the democracy and the country he died for.
“Labour Party is the only alternative party Nigerians are looking up to. Thus, we must move this nation from the old to a complete generational through a change of leadership. If the leaders in Labour Party cannot find a common ground to come together, I beg all of them to leave the party and let us rebuild this party with the help of NLC and Nigerians from the grassroots up and we will stand to challenge any one, any government by 2027”.
The former Presidential Aspirant said he considered it necessary to hold the press conference in order, “to call out the stakeholders of Labour Party who have refused in the midst of so many hardships in our nation, in the midst of insecurity like the one never seen in war zones like Ukraine and Russia combined, the hunger the World has never known and mass migration of the workforce of Nigerians out of Nigeria as a result of so many bad economy policies of our varying administrations, especially the present government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“So, one would have thought that Labour Party would stand and represent a true opposition, that the government of APC deserves, instead we have become a house that is divided against itself”.
Joseph added and alleged that “This government of APC is destroying our nation every day. So many wrong policies from subsidy removal to naira unification policies – that have all crashed our economy -, to insecurity and kidnapping in our nation, as if we don’t have a clue about security anymore. Our nation is ravaged by kidnappers and they seem to be more powerful than our security apparatus combined.
“A former Head of State once said and I quote, “If any insurgent lasts more than 24 hours then an insider has hands in it.” We have become a nation where average Nigerians cannot ply the street or walk freely at daylight not to even talk of at night. We have become a nation where we are afraid to send our kids to school in fear of not sure if they will return home.
“We have become a nation where the price of goods in the market today is different from what you get tomorrow. We have become a nation where we have leaders who have no clue or care less about the citizens and all they care about is looting, embezzlement and corruption in the highest places.
“Our National Assembly is busy padding budgets. Our Parastatals are busy inflating contracts and allocations. Our State Governors are busy getting security votes and money they can’t account for. Our Director Generals lavish money abroad for the summit. The office of the Chief of Staff is on a rampage of a 14 billion naira budget: just for the office of the Chief of Staff to the President. We often take more than we can afford abroad as delegates. Average workers cannot afford three square meals anymore. And many disturbing issues as regards this administration.
“And a party that is supposed to call them out and checkmate this wasteful government and start positioning ourselves for 2027 is busy destroying itself from within.
“One would have thought that after the election, all this hullabaloo would have been over and we would come together for a common purpose and common interests to save our nation. But instead of that, all we see on the pages of newspapers daily is a party in disarray, leadership in a mess, the centre no longer holding, many factions: Abure faction today, Alhaji Apapa Lamidi Faction here and many others”.
“The first question I asked myself and want Nigerians to ask themselves is “Where is Mr competent and capable? Where is the man who told the World he is competent to run a country and yet a party under him is in total shambles but he could not handle it? Where is the man who calls himself Mr Fix-it that he can fix the country’s problem yet can’t fix the problem mainly and majorly created by him and his cohorts in the party? Let’s be clear to ourselves.
“If Mr Peter watches as LP gets destroyed every day, then one may want to believe that he has failed as a leader and is not competent or have the capacity to run a nation of over 250 ethics diversities, yet he is busy running around Nigeria like a campaign merchant whom his house is in disarray and did not see the need to put it in order.”
