Ceekay Igara, the Abia State Chairman of Labour Party (LP) and the Abia State chairman of Inter- Party Advisory Council (IPAC), in this interview with CHIBUIKE CHUKWU, says that Lamidi Apapa, the factional chairman of the party, is being funded in some quarters to destroy the Labour Party, among other issues. Excerpts:
What is the situation with Labour Party in Abia State in the light of the issues at the Abia State House of Assembly whereby it was alleged that the ruling party in the state usurped the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)?
If PDP was in the majority, they would have won the seat of the speaker. We had collaborations with one or two parties in the state. PDP was not in the majority in the Abia State House of Assembly; forget about the media propaganda they engaged in to whip up sentiment here and there.
Abia State was under what some called misrule under the PDP since the country returned to uninterrupted democracy leading to massive jubilation at the coming of Alex Otti. How has his administration been able to impact on Abians in the light of years of mis-governance?
You have already summarized it. It is too early to judge and I want to tell you that the party gave him three months to clear his desk because of huge responsibility he met on ground. Perhaps after that we will start making comparisons. For now there is no need to start assessing him because the responsibilities are much.
In May, a Federal High Court in Kano nullified the candidacy of Otti as the flag bearer of LP in the then Abia State governorship election and you were quoted as saying that Lamidi Apapa was behind the judgment, can you throw more light on this?
Lamidi Apapa is not the national chairman of the Labour Party. He is a suspended member of the Labour Party. There is no way an outsider should come and be controlling what is happening in the Labour Party because Lamidi Apapa is not an insider having been suspended as a member of the party. That judgment was a miscarriage of justice and it was in error which the judge acknowledged. Appeal Court also confirmed that, so there is no basis for comparison based on that judgment. Apapa has an ulterior motive and that is why all his activities will fail because he is out for something bad for the party.
But Apapa is basing his position as the national chairman on the earlier court judgment in Abuja where Julius Abure was suspended on account of insincerity and alleged forgery of Labour Party materials. That court judgment has not been vacated and on the basis of that, Lamidi is saying Abure is not the chairman of the party. What is your take on this?
Which party committee assessed Abure? This is because if you are a member of a party and there is an infringement on your right or whatsoever, the first thing to do is to raise a complaint and that complaint will get to the national executive and when national executive sits to look at it, they’ll set up a committee. It is at this point that the NEC would have mandated Abure to step aside if he is found to have done anything wrong. So we have to look into that matter from this standpoint. Meanwhile, I’m a member of NEC of Labour Party. As a member of NEC, I can tell you that such issue had never arisen. Since such issue has not arisen in the first instance, what we heard was somebody taking a matter to court, it is a nullity from the beginning. As far as I’m concerned as the chairman of council of all the chairmen of our party, we’re not part of that and we’re not interested in that matter because if you want to do things and respect us, you follow the normal procedure. I can tell you that this is why Nigeria is suffering right now. People are usurping the system. If you believe in a system, why not subject yourself to that system in the first place and stop playing the opposition. Unfortunately, in a system it is only when certain things do not suit some people that they’ll decide to go to court. In this instance, there hasn’t been any matter like that whereby someone will just get up and go to court without any issue. So why do we have to join issues with this? This is why the council of chairmen of our party is solidly standing by Abure because what Apapa and co are doing is a nullity in the first instance. We cannot in our own time watch absurdity prevail. Labour Party has come to the level where no one individual will just decide to have his way even when he is wrong. We cannot allow that.
But as has been insinuated in some quarters, particularly by those supporting Abure, do you think that Apapa is being sponsored from outside to destroy the Labour Party?
I stand to confirm this to you right away because our national leadership has said it times without number that there are some people who are funding Apapa. For instance take a look at his activities closely. Who is Apapa to charter a private jet to go to Bauchi? Who is Apapa to lodge in Nicon Hilton? Who is Apapa to move with the kind of vehicles he usually move along with? Apapa we know is not somebody who can afford those luxuries, so who is funding him or do you think he is funding himself? Who is funding him if not that they want to take the victory of Peter Obi at the election? That is why Nigerians must rise up to stop Apapa and those who are bankrolling his activities because they don’t mean well for the country. I know the whole issue is because Peter Obi won votes of Nigerians and they are not comfortable with that. That is why they’re using someone like Apapa to want to destroy Labour Party but we have gone beyond that level.
As the chairman of the council of chairmen of Labour Party, what is being done by the party in Enugu State where the LP is claiming that it won the gubernatorial election there?
It is not about Labour Party claiming. If you use the word claiming, that means you are on the wrong side of issues. A party that won fourteen House of Assembly seats out of twenty four, a party that won seven House of Representatives seat, a party that claimed two senatorial seats and you are saying claim. There is no claiming here. Look at it closely again from calculations and out of eight House of Representatives seat, we won seven; out of three senators we won two and out of twenty four House of Assembly seats we won fourteen. What do you call that? I mean you journalists what do you people call that? We are not claiming that we won Enugu State. We duly won the state with records, facts and statistics and we are not relenting in reclaiming that state. Even a blind man can see that we won that election. Even those who wanted to deny us the result understood that we won that election but like I said earlier, we are giving it everything to make sure that justice is served and Labour Party as one family is on it because it was very unfortunate how low things can go in this country.
In the presidential election tribunal where your candidate Peter Obi is challenging the declaration of Tinubu as the winner, is the LP bothered by the Appeal Court delay in their ruling?
Yes we are actually disturbed but I won’t like to talk about our plan in the media space. We are arranging what we are going to do on this. I cannot let the cat out of the bag but one thing is certain, we are not sleeping over this. We are not relenting on this because it is something that concerns the soul of the nation. When you get leadership right, all other things will fall into place and Nigeria is where it is today because we have not been able to get leadership right. We are proactive and we are even going ahead of certain things that will culminate in getting judgment at the right time which I will not want to make public here.
Coming back to Abia State, the state House of Assembly is reportedly locked in crises over issues of leadership. As the ruling party in the state, does it in any way bother Labour Party?
What is not peaceful, if I may ask? Forget what you may have heard, there is no disharmony in the state Assembly or between the legislative arm and the executive arm. It is just opposition. In your house where you are living, may be you came back yesterday and somebody has thrown out your bed outside, you must react and show displeasure. That is exactly what is happening in Abia State House of Assembly. It is opposition thing. We have the majority with the alignment of one or two parties and I don’t think there should be any serious issue with that. Issues here and there will always arise and it is just something normal in a multi-party Assembly. In our own case we are managing it well because we are also coming from being opposition before and we understand how they feel being in that position now. That is why we don’t want to join issues with them. It is the normal thing. It is not something that should not be expected in an Assembly that has members of different political parties. If you watch, the Speaker of the House hasn’t made any statement. I have been making the statement on their behalf because I know what is exactly happening there. It is not something that should not have been expected in the first place. But one thing I want you to take home with is that the Abia State House of Assembly and the state government are working harmoniously. There is no rift whatsoever between them and that is why things are working very well in the state right now. Forget about what people who may not mean well for the state is telling those they feel they can pass such information to. There is no issue here.
When a member of the State Assembly, Hon Akpulonu, was suspended by the House, you actually reacted, supporting the decision of the House. Consequently, you came under criticism for taking that position given that you are the chairman of Labour Party in the state and not the spokesperson of the Assembly. What is your take on that?
It doesn’t matter what people said or how they reacted to that because I will still do that again. This is because we need to bring sanity to everything we do. On two or three occasions, that same person disrupted the proceedings of the House, so let it not be that keeping quiet is a sign of weakness. I believe sincerely that the decision to suspend Akpulonu was to pass the message to the lawmakers that they’re not in the house of commotion. They should be people with integrity and sound mind to make laws that will transform the state that is coming out of bad governance and in situations where indiscipline and commotion reign, nothing will take place. We are doing things in order to get the needed promises that we made to Abia people and that is why the House must be in peace at every time. If you have issues with any matter in a gathering, there are ways of getting it passed across for attention instead of disrupting the entire process. I can tell you that no sane person will tolerate that. That you are a ranking member of the House or because you are part of the former Assembly doesn’t in any way mean that you must overrule everybody. Things don’t happen that way in a sane society. In the Abia State House of Assembly, there is a majority leader, there is a deputy majority leader and all other principal officers that should attend to matters depending on what it is. We should not allow our personal ego to override the overall interest of Abia people and I like what the House did by suspending him so that others will know that if we must serve Abians sincerely, we must have sanity at all times.
But according to information we obtained, the challenge in the House boils down to the fact that the PDP claimed that they are in majority and that there was overbearing influence of the executive, making it impossible for them to produce key principal officers…
There is falsehood everywhere. This is a false information. Yong Peoples Party (YPP) has two seats, All Progressives Congress (APC) has one while we have ten, making it thirteen already. Maybe I need to educate you on this. Simple majority is what you use to win any election in Nigeria as far as our constitution is concerned. In Abia State House of Assembly, there are twenty four house members. We have YPP two, APC one, Labour Party ten and PDP eleven. In their eleven, there was an understanding between Labour Party and YPP and according to the rule of the House, if there is that joint agreement and consent, it means that whatever position gotten by YPP belongs to Labour Party. And with that in mind, we are already in simple majority. So we are the majority in the House. Forget about all those insinuations and innuendos. They don’t move people like us because we know we are quietly carrying out the procedure and doing things exactly how things should be done. There will always be a fight from them and that fight is what we are contending while not losing grip on what we promised Abians right from inception. When you have a stubborn child and he does what you don’t like, you flog him. That is what we are applying, carrot and stick. We keep doing it until everyone comes to terms with the reality that we need to provide dividends of democracy to Abians. In my last press statement, I admonished the lawmakers to settle down to business of lawmaking for the good of Abians.
