Faction of the Labour Party led by the suspended acting national chairman, Lamidi Apapa, urged security agencies to arrest anyone, including the party’s presidential candidate, if they push for an interim government in the country.
The faction’s National Publicity Secretary, Abayomi Arabambi, made the call in a chat with journalists in Abuja.
was reacting to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court’s decision to assume jurisdiction in the suit filed against the LP national chairman, Julius Abure, by some party members.He charged security agents to arrest any person planning to stop the inauguration of the President-elect, Bola Tinubu on May 29 irrespective of the person’s status in the society.
Arabambi added that if the LP legal team at the presidential election petition tribunal in Abuja failed to meet Apapa in his capacity as the acting national chairman and brief him on the legal proceedings within 48 hours, the faction would appoint new lawyers to take over the case at the tribunal.
He said: “If anyone calls for interim administration including Peter Obi, they should be arrested. For him or any other person calling for such, we are calling on the IGP to immediately arrest them because nobody is above the law of the land.
“You cannot plunge Nigeria into war and say that you want to rule the country. We in the Labour Party are saying capital ‘No’ to that. We don’t understand the call by Peter Obi that the President-elect, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu should not be sworn in on May 29. As far as we are concerned, the LP came third in that election behind the PDP.
“The irony is that today, the LP is not challenging the PDP that came second, that means that we are saying that the votes allocated to PDP are correct in the eyes of the law. But the PDP that Peter Obi is defending is challenging the validity of the election that brought Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the President-elect.
PDP is claiming that it scored the highest lawful majority votes in the election while the LP is saying that, ‘No’, the votes you have, we are not challenging it because it is in accordance with what we believe in. That was why Peter Obi with Julius Abure deliberately excluded the PDP after the shenanigans with them and now challenging the results of the APC.
“So, how on earth will he not cover his face in shame for excluding the PDP? Why didn’t he challenge the second person but challenged the first person?”