The Labour Party (LP) has declared that it will not present candidates in Nigeria’s forthcoming 2019 general elections. 

Speaking at a news conference in Abuja, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Ebere Ifendu said the party had no substantive National Chairman and Secretary to sign the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)  nomination form for such candidates.

She said the tenure of the Alhaji Abdulkadir Salam-led National Working Committee (NWC) expired on October 10, 2018, adding that Salam has refused to obey the court judgement which ordered the party to convene a National Convention to conduct fresh elections.

She also dismissed a purported National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the party which reportedly took place in Minna, saying that the meeting was not properly constituted in accordance with the LP Constitution.

Her words: “There is a subsisting court order that gave us a mandate to conduct an all-inclusive national convention. The judgment is a consent judgment which involved all parties, including Abdulsalam, who signed the documents that were used for the judgment.

“So, it is no longer what INEC can interfere with. The court orders must be respected. INEC wrote the party a letter asking for an all-inclusive national convention but Abdusalam went ahead to elongate his tenure outside the content of the consent judgement.

“So, he is already in violation of the consent judgement. INEC on its part has obeyed the court order by asking LP to go and hold an all-inclusive national convention.

“I am repeating it again. LP cannot field candidates for the elections in 2019, reason being that the tenure of the party’s present National Working Committee has expired on October 10. There is no existing National Chairman and National Secretary of Labour Party as we speak.

“Article 13 (2) A, explicitly spells out the composition of the party’s National Executive Council members. Among the persons on the list are the Presidents and General Secretaries of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC).

“None of these constitutional members of the organ were in attendance nor represented. That clearly shows that the purported NEC meeting has nothing to do with LP whatsoever.”