The leadership crisis in the Labour Party (LP) has deepened as the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Julius Abure-led National Working Committee (NWC) dismissed claims by Callistus Okafor, who recently declared himself the rightful National Chairman of the party.
The conflict emerged after Okafor, a former Deputy National Chairman of the LP, announced at a press conference in Abuja that he was taking control of the party based on a 2018 consent judgment from the Federal High Court.
Okafor claimed that the judgment, which was issued following a previous leadership dispute between former party leaders Abdulkadir Salam and Salisu Mohammed, had not been respected. According to him, the current leadership of Julius Abure was built on a faulty foundation that disregarded the court ruling.
Okafor’s declaration comes amid ongoing tensions within the LP, where a caretaker committee led by former minister Nenadi Usman has been set up, leading to a power struggle with the existing Abure-led NWC.
Despite this, Okafor believes he is the legitimate leader, backed by the 2018 court decision.
However, Umar Farouk, the National Secretary of the Labour Party, quickly rejected Okafor’s claim, describing it as an opportunistic move to exploit the party’s current internal challenges.
Farouk also accused Abia State Governor Alex Otti of contributing to the party’s leadership crisis, stating that Otti’s role in creating a caretaker committee had only complicated the situation.
He said, “Okafor’s claim to be the legitimate national chairman of the party shouldn’t come as a surprise. It is not new to us. If Governor Otti can wake up one day and decide to illegitimately form a caretaker committee, Tom, Dick, and Harry can equally claim to be the leader of the Labour Party. That is the danger of what they have done.
“I believe you know the NLC has also created one they call ‘National Transition Committee.’ But in the end, it will be the court that determines the true leaders and legal officers of the party. Until then, Okafor is free to make noise all over the place.”
Similarly, the NLC has distanced itself from Okafor. Professor Theophilus Ndubuaku, the Deputy President of the NLC Political Commission, dismissed Okafor’s claim as a mere publicity stunt.
Ndubuaku questioned Okafor’s influence within the party, pointing out that key party figures such as LP presidential candidate Peter Obi, Governor Otti, and numerous lawmakers were all aligned with the Abure-led faction.
Ndubuaku also stated, “People can have as many factional chairmen as they want, but the question here is that when you have Peter Obi as the leader of the LP, Otti as the only governor of the party, senators and members of the House of Representatives elected on our platform, House of Assembly members, as well as the statutory members – TUC and NLC – together with us, who will Okafor claim to be working with?”
“We are not even talking about the loyalty of virtually all the party stakeholders yet. So, I ask again: Who are the members of Okafor’s faction and what are they bringing to the table?
“So, I think Okafor just wants to be in the news. He is just trying to get some relevance,” he stated.
