The Labour Party has stated that its presidential candidate in the last election, Peter Obi, has never called for postponement of the inauguration of the incoming administration on May 29.
The Lamidi Apapa faction of the Labour Party had stated that the swearing-in of Tinubu may not have any impact on the ongoing legal tussle on the presidential election involving their party, APC and INEC.
The faction that distanced itself from the calls for an interim government and the agitations that the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, should not be sworn in on May 29, pending the determination of the petitions before the presidential election tribunal, made this known in a statement signed on Wednesday by the faction’s spokesman, Abayomi Arabambi.
Arabambi explained that the Electoral Act and the Constitution of Nigeria did not give room for a vacuum, noting that whether the President-elect is sworn in or not, there is a way to remove him legally if it is found out that he was not duly elected.
The spokesman who cited sections 136 and 146 of the constitution, said only death and permanent incapacity can stop a President-elect from being sworn in, recalling how the court removed Chris Ngige and confirmed Peter Obi as the Governor of Anambra in 2003.
However, the acting National Publicity Secretary of the party, Mr. Obiora Ifoh, in a statement on Thursday, described Obi as a democrat who believes in the judiciary as the last arbiter and has resorted to the court to seek justice.
Ifoh denied that his principal ever raised such issues whether in a private or public conversation, alluding that the real enemies of the party are beginning to unfold.
He noted that no amount of hatchet job can distract Obi from reclaiming his mandate.
He said, “In all Peter Obi’s public and private statements, he has never said or by implication, insinuated that May 29 should be shifted. He is a democrat and he is one person that believes so much in the judiciary as the last arbiter, and that is why he has resorted to the court to seek justice.
“I had refused to join issues with the expelled former acting National Publicity Secretary of Labour Party, Abayomi Arabambi and the suspended Deputy National Chairman, Lamidi Apapa on their mischievous narratives of the ‘May 29 handover’ to INEC’s declared winner of the presidential election. The Labour Party actually does not want to comment on the matter which hearing has since commenced at the presidential appeal tribunal.
“The text of the statement which was read as commercial in about three television stations in prime time hours suggests that the real sponsors of the crisis in the Labour Party will stop at nothing in ensuring that they sustain the imbroglio. Few weeks ago, you would recall how we alerted Nigerians to plots by this faction to withdraw the cases filed by some of our candidates in the tribunals, allegations they are yet to exonerate themselves from.
“Part of their plots to scuttle the ongoing presidential tribunal as shamelessly boasted by Arabambi is to desecrate the sanctity of the tribunal venue on the next adjourned date with Lamidi Apapa forcing himself to appear as a representative of the Labour Party.
“Nigerians already know that you are sponsored to work against the presidential ambition of Peter Obi. No one is in doubt about Apapa camp’s ambition to remain a destructive agent in the Labour Party,” he added.