Omotoso has been stacked - LP waves off Southwest chapter defection to APC

By Christiana Ekpa

The Labour Party, LP, has reacted to the purported defection of some of its members and supporters to the All Progressives Congress, APC, at a ceremony held in Adegbemile Hall in Akure, the Ondo State capital.

A statement by Mrs Remilekun Ojo, Ondo State

Chairman of the Labour Party, said the event was attended by “a few dozen people” who claimed to be the South-West chapter of the party.

The politicians on Monday announced they were “collapsing” the Labour Party in the region into the All Progressive Congress (APC) immediately.

“As expected, the meeting was chaired by an expelled member [of LP], Mr Banji Omotoso, who was the then Caretaker State Chairman in Ekiti State from 2017 to 2019,” Ojo noted.

The statement stressed that the LP in the South-West and in the six geopolitical regions “remains one and indivisible.”

Under no circumstances will the party think of merging with any party, “not even the APC that has brought untold hardship and suffering to the nation,” she stated.

As for Omotoso, the so-called “Southwest coordinator,” Ojo avowed that he was sacked for “gross malfeasance and antiparty activities” in January 2020 and ceased to have anything to do with the party and therefore has no authority to speak for or on behalf of the LP.

Eno is party’s guber candidate –

A’Ibom PDP

By Musa Baba Adamu

The legal team of Umo Eno, the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, for the March 11, 2023 elections in Akwa Ibom State has insisted that Micheal Enyong is not the governorship candidate of the party as speculated.

Enyong, currently a House of Representative member for Uyo Federal Constituency, obtained a judgement at the Federal High Court in Abuja declaring him the governorship candidate of PDP in the state.

Prior to the judgement, Enyong who never participated in the primary conducted by his party allegedly held a parallel primary at his residence where he reportedly polled 2,448 out of the 2,776 total accredited votes.

In a press briefing by the former Attorney General of the state, Uwemedimo Nwoko, SAN, who is the legal team lead of Umo Eno Campaign Council, he affirmed that Eno remained the candidate of the party as there is a pending application for stay of execution at both the Appeal Court and the High Court filed by PDP and it’s candidate, Eno, respectively.

Nwoko who addressed journalists in Uyo added that based on three grounds―of fraud, lack of due service to parties listed and lack of jurisdiction―”the purported judgement obtained by Mike Enyong was not tenable anywhere.”

He further claimed that Enyong reportedly forged the signatures of the National Chairman of the PDP, National Organizing Secretary of the PDP and other officials, and even went as far as forging the official letterhead paper of the PDP and presented same before the court, “where he obtained the fraudulent judgment.”

Nwoko who said he has conducted his investigations challenged Enyong to present the said judgement to INEC(which he is yet to do) or to the public for scrutiny even as he (Nwoko) said he had visited INEC website and found that Umo Eno’s name is still retained there as the PDP candidate.

His words: “He (Enyong) has not gotten the courage to present his fraudulently obtained judgement to INEC up till now. Even if he approaches INEC, it will not be executed. PDP through its representative, Paul Usoro, SAN, had filed a stay of execution. There is a stay-of-execution motion at the Court of Appeal. Mike Enyong is not and cannot be the candidate of the PDP in Akwa Ibom State, because the purported judgement he has is not valid. The judgement he is holding was obtained by fraud.”