The leadership crisis rocking the Labour Party (LP) festered on Friday with two of the principal antagonists, the embattled LP National Chairman, Julius Abure and the part’s lone governor, Dr. Alex Otti of Abia State.
This is despite the recent Supreme Court judgement, which was expected to have rested the protracted leadership crisis in the party that came third in the 2023 presidential election, behind the major opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) that won the election.
The fresh twist emerge after Governor Otti on Friday on ‘The Morning Show’, a programme on ARISE TV, said that Abure knew that his reign as LP helmsman is over and that he was just masturbating.
In a swift reaction, Abure, speaking during the expanded LP National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held at the national headquarters, Abuja, said that Otti was ungrateful and that the party leadership has been magnanimous, patient, and expressed maturity in handling some of the rascals they accommodated in the party.
Background of recent crisis
The LP has been embroiled in a leadership crisis, with Abure and his allies on one hand, and the caretaker committee led by Senator Nenadi Usman on the other.
The Usman committee is supported by Peter Obi, the party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 elections and Otti.
The Apex Court on Friday, 4 April, ruled that the court of appeal lacked the jurisdiction to pronounce Abure chairman of the LP.
The judgement, which set aside an earlier Court of Appeal verdict recognising Barrister Julius Abure as the party’s national chairman, has generated varied interpretations, with Abure and former Minister of Finance, Senator Nenadi Usman, both claiming the judgement is in their favour.
In its judgement, a five-member panel of the Supreme Court held that the Court of Appeal lacked the jurisdiction to pronounce Abure as LP national chairman, having earlier found that the substantive issue before the court was party leadership -a matter deemed an internal affair.
The lead judgement, prepared by Justice John Okoro and read by Justice Mohammed Baba Idris, noted that since the case filed at the Federal High Court centred on LP’s leadership, it was not justiciable.
Consequently, the apex court set aside both the trial and appellate court decisions recognising Abure as chairman and struck out the LP’s suit for lack of jurisdiction.
‘In summary, both the trial court and the lower court have no jurisdiction to have entertained the suit by the first respondent (LP)’, the court stated.
‘Flowing from the above, the decisions of the trial court and the court below recognising Barrister Julius Abure as the National Chairman of the first respondent are hereby set aside’.
It also dismissed a cross-appeal filed by the Abure faction, describing it as unmeritorious, while allowing the main appeal brought by Senator Usman and another party.
The apex court warned political parties to respect their constitutions and internal processes, urging party officers whose tenures had expired to vacate their positions. The ruling is seen as reinforcing the principle that leadership matters within political parties should not be settled by the courts.
The judgment followed appeals against the 8 October 2024 decision of Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court, which had directed INEC to recognise Abure’s leadership. On 17 January 2025, the Court of Appeal reaffirmed Abure’s chairmanship, a ruling that has now been nullified by the Supreme Court.
Since the verdict, there have been various interpretations of the apex court’s pronouncement, with all factions claiming victory, citing the certified true copy (CTC) of the judgement.
What Otti said on Abure
Speaking on ‘The Morning Show’, on ARISE TV, on Friday Governor Otti reiterated that he would not leave the LP despite the recent wave of defections from the opposition amidst the crisis in the party, where he was the lone governor.
He said his party is not facing a leadership threat and that the apex court judgment removed Abure as national chairman and stripped him of authority over the party’s affairs.
‘Governor Otti is not decamping and my party (LP) is not on shaky ground, everybody must not be in APC. This is democracy and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu held on to his AD, AC, ACN before becoming APC.
‘If not, he wouldn’t be president today. Sometimes you have to also stand for something. Let me tell you. I was in PDP. And then from PDP, I went to APGA. I went to APC. I’ve been in APC. So that’s not the issue.
‘The issue is that the party that brought me to power is Labour. And today we have fought and retrieved the Labour Party. When you go through the Supreme Court judgment, you will know that Abure is just masturbating’, the governor said.
Asked if he was certain about remaining in LP, Otti said political decisions are determined by prevailing conditions and the will of the people.
Otti said, ‘And I’m not God to also say that I will remain in Labour Party or leave Labour Party. But as we speak, the current conditions do not warrant my leaving the Labour Party. Tomorrow, anything can change. And I’ve told you, I’m very pragmatic and I look at things. And of course, if I’m going to take any decision, that decision is going to be taken in full consultation with Abia people’.
He insisted that the LP is now under a new national caretaker committee which will oversee fresh congresses from the ward level to the national convention before the end of the year.
Abure fires back
Speaking few hours after at the expanded LP NEC meeting on Friday in Abuja, Abure, a lawyer expressed sadness over Dr. Otti’s derogatory statements about the leadership of the party.
He said, ‘This leadership has been very magnanimous, we have been very patient, we have expressed a lot of maturity in handling some of the rascals that we accommodated in our party. And I think it got to a call today with that interview, and we felt that it’s most appropriate at this point in time, to respond to him so that he doesn’t think he is the only one who can be in the gutter.
Abure said, ‘You will recall that not too long ago, the governor stated that if we don’t relinquish the leadership of the party, that he was going to use government machinery to destroy us in the party.
‘As leaders and matured leaders of this party, without sounding immodest, we made Governor Alex Otti, made him governor, we supported him, made sacrifices to him, refused bribe, refused offers, that made him governor.
‘And so, today (Friday), he was again on Arise Television, and deliberately, tried to misinform members of the public in respect of the Supreme Court’s decision. My major worry was his foul language when he said that we are masturbating. The Supreme Court has sacked us, and that he’s laughing at us because we are still holding on to the leadership and masturbating in the party’.
He said that ‘dwarfi’ and Lilliputian men used to be men of great ideas and that it is in Alex Otti that he will see, one who is not only dwarfi in appearance, but also dwarfi in knowledge.
According to him, the Supreme Court decision was clear that issues of leadership are a domestic affairs of the party, which shows that the constitution of the party will be supreme.
‘The Supreme Court said every matter that has to do with leaderships and internal affairs are the domestic affairs of the party. And the party organs spoke loud and clear on the 27th of March 2024, at a week where a national convention was held that brought in the leadership of the party.
‘And therefore, for him to again be on national television today, after they have moved themselves like crickets to INEC office, where a governor belittled himself, carried the CTC, because INEC have not seen governors, or because they think they can intimidate INEC and harass them by going to INEC to submit a CTC of a court judgment.
‘If you cannot obey your party constitution, is it when you are the president of Nigeria, when you are a government, that you will not (mis)treat the Constitution of Nigeria, the Electoral Act, and so on?
‘If because you are a governor, you can sit in Abia and say you have dissolved national executive, state executive, world executive, local government unit executive, even PDP in their most powerful days, with all the governors, have never behaved with such’, Abure said.
Sets up disciplinary committee on Otti
The communique of the LP NEC by Abure and Alhaji Umar Farouk Ibrahim, LP National Secretary said it reviewed the anti-party activities of Dr. Alex Otti, and other erring members and consequently sets up a five-man disciplinary committee.
The committee comprised Dr. Ayo Olorunfemi, Chairman and Alhaji Umar Farouk Ibrahim as Secretary; while Barrister Kehinde Edun, Mrs. Dudu Manuga and Barrister Callistus Ihejiagwa- are members, with two weeks to submit their report.
Rules out collation, merger for 2027
The LP NEC also declared that the party is not and will not be part of any coalition towards the 2027 General Election.
‘The party will rather continue to rebuild, reposition, re-strategize, reconcile, strengthen, drive its programs and policies, win more members towards winning the 2027 General Elections’, the communique said.
The NEC also congratulated Chief George Moghalu who emerged winner and the party’s candidate for the 2025 Anambra State Governorship Election at the Governorship primaries held in Awka on 05/04/2025.
‘NEC rallies all members and Ndi Anambra to support Chief George Moghalu for the 8 November 2025 Anambra State governorship election for a greater Anambra State’, it said.
