Apapa Faction Insists Ukaegbu Is LP Imo Guber Candidate As Achonu Flags Off Campaign Tuesday

The Lamidi Apapa faction of the Labour Party (LP) on Friday insisted that Ikechukwu Ukaegbu is the authentic candidate of the party for the November 11 governorship election in Imo State.

Ukaegbu emerged as the candidate in a parallel primary conducted by the Apapa faction on April 16.

However, another candidate, Athan Achonu, was earlier, on April 15, elected as the party’s flagbearer for the gubernatorial poll in a primary held by the faction led by Julius Abure, widely recognised as LP national chairman.

The two factions, and the two candidates, have been engaged in a legal battle ahead of the governorship election.

THE WHISTLER observed on Friday that Achonu, the candidate of the Abure faction, released a program of events for the flag-off of his governorship campaign.

The flag-off is scheduled for Tuesday, August 22.

According to the program seen by THE WHISTLER, Abure will chair the event which will be held at the Kanu Nwankwo Stadium, Owerri.

LP presidential candidate in the 2023 General Elections, Peter Obi, and Abia State governor, Alex Otti, are the special guest of honour and guest of honour, respectively, for the campaign flag-off.

Obi and Otti’s involvement in the event suggests that Achonu is the recognised candidate of the LP for the Imo State gubernatorial poll.

The invitation card for the campaign flag-off was jointly signed by Callistus Ihejiagwa, chairman of the LP in Imo State, and Chime Nzeribe, Director General of the Achonu campaign organisation.

However, in a statement released on Wednesday, the Apapa camp insisted that Ukaegbu, and not Achonu, is the party’s governorship candidate in Imo State.

The statement which was issued as a ‘disclaimer’ following the release of the program of events for Achonu’s campaign flag-off, was signed by Apapa as acting national chairman, and Lawan Saleh, acting national secretary.

Comrade Adebambi Abayomi, National Publicity Secretary of the LP, was also a signatory.

“Alhaji Lamidi Bashiru Apapa and Saleh Lawan, the Acting National Chairman and Acting National Secretary of the Labour Party in Nigeria, hereby declare that the Owerri High Court judgment on the disputed primaries of 15th April, 2023, conducted illegally by Julius Abure and his FCT High Court restrained cohorts, was dismissed in favour of the Alhaji Lamidi Bashiru Apapa’s primaries conducted on 16th April, 2023, that produced Chief Ukaegbu Ikechukwu Joseph Ikenga as the authentic gubernatorial candidate of Labour Party in Imo State for the 11th November, 2023 gubernatorial election,” the statement said.

Noting that the “Court of Appeal also struck out Achonu’s appeal for lacking merit”, the statement stressed that the FCT High Court had, on April 5, restrained Abure, Umar Farouk Ibrahim, Ojukwu Clement and Oluchi Opara as National Chairman, National Secretary, National Organising Secretary and National Treasurer of the LP following a Nigeria Police Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID) investigation and forensic audit report that indicted them for forgery, perjury, impersonation and financial malfeasance to the sum of over N400 million.

The statement added that the Court of Appeal, Benin Division, “erred in judgement when it overstepped its mandate of adjudicating on the matter of Abure’s suspension to the unsolicited issues of chairmanship which is the prerogative of the FCT High Court Order of 5th April, 2023 that restrained them”.

Insisting that Apapa is the authentic national chairman of the LP, the statement said: “As such, Abure remains restrained by the FCT High Court Order of 5th April, 2023, that is still pending barring Abure from parading himself as the National Chairman along with other restrained executives: Umar Farouk Ibrahim, Ojukwu Clement and Mrs Oluchi Opara.”