The Chairman of the Labour Party National Caretaker Committee (LP-NCC), Senator Nenadi Usman, has revealed that the party was on the brink of being de-registered by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
According to Usman, this potential action by INEC was averted thanks to the timely intervention of party leaders during the September 4 Stakeholders meeting in Umuahia.
Addressing journalists after the inaugural meeting of the LP-NCC in Abuja on Thursday, Senator Usman detailed the precarious situation faced by the Labour Party.
She emphasized that without the swift and decisive actions of party leaders, INEC’s decision to de-register the party could have been finalized.
The caretaker chairman who promised to operate an open door policy and carry all members along said, “On September 4 at Umuahia, the capital of Abia state, no team, group or divide of our party’s various episodes of conflict was vanquished. Everyone won. Therefore, no group or divide should feel any sense of shame or defeat.
“We won together as one political family by the reality of the law. We escaped together the sword of INEC which would have otherwise taken our beloved party out of its books for having no legally acceptable leadership that meets the requirements of our country’s Electoral Act.
“The legacy I desire to be remembered for is that I met a Labour Party in relative conflict and disunity but left it a united, formidable and indomitable elections winning party nationwide.”
She also called on those who are aggrieved to shelve their sword and join hands with her committee, saying “Come forward and let us reason together on my committee’s supreme mandate. This is the mandate to deliver to our party, in about three months, exemplary unifying state congresses nationwide.
“This will climax in a transparent all-inclusive national convention which will produce the next substantive NEC and NWC of our party, and subsequently the next leadership of our great country.”
She said the situation in the party, “could have left the commission with no alternative but to deregister our party from their portals and excluded us from all elections. That course of action was successfully averted on September 4 at Umuahia.”
On his part, the acting Chairman NLC Political Commission, Professor Theophilus Ndubuaku, called on members to shelve their differences and join hands with the committee to move the party forward.