Mr. Lamidi Apapa.
The faction-instigated crisis concerning the Labour Party (LP) leadership may have resurfaced as two officials of the party were seen in a viral video being beaten by some group of people in an unknown location within Benin City, Edo State on Friday with houses and vehicles being sighted.
One of those being pumelled in the video is identified as Anslem Eragbe, while the other’s identity could not be confirmed at press time.
While Eragbe who is dressed in white apparel is seen being beaten by about five people on the ground with some seen kicking him with their legs and other items with his clothes torn and leaving him with a stained top and underwear, another in a blue address is seen sitting on the ground gesticulating with some people standing around him.
They were in Benin, it was gathered, to implement the timetable allegedly released by the Lamidi Apapa faction of the LP which was planning to organise a meeting to elect delegates that would participate in their primary election.
A voice can be heard in the background, repeatedly shouting “una get mind enter Benin”.
Reacting to the development, Samson Uroupa, state publicity secretary of the party, described the suspects who he said were not members of the party, as impostors, pointing out that they were causing trouble in the party.
He called on security agencies in the state to arrest anybody laying claim to a faction in the LP and maintained that the issue of faction had been dealt with by the Supreme Court.
Said Uroupa: “We think If there is anybody still laying claim to a faction in the party, the security agencies should arrest such persons because the Supreme Court has laid that matter to rest.
“Anybody going in any guise to purportedly conduct primary election or whatever, should be arrested by the security agencies. That is our stand. Because, Labour Party is one.
“The people are impostors and are not members of the Labour Party. They are just out there to ferment trouble.
“Maybe it is the opposition parties that are the ones sponsoring them. Maybe because of the fear of the soaring popularity and acceptance of the Labour Party in Edo State”.
On the purported election time-table by the Apapa faction of the party, Kelly Ogbaloi, state chairman of the party, advised members of the public to disregard any purported notice claiming “Time-Table and Schedule of activities for the Labour Party Re-Run, Bye-Elections with Edo and Ondo Gubernatorial Primaries 2024”.
He said that such notice never emanated from the national secretariat of the party as it had not released guidelines for the nomination of the party’s candidate for the Edo State 2024 governorship election.
He said Dr. Abayomi Arabambi who issued the purported guidelines and time-table for the Labour Party in respect of the Edo State Labour Party gubernatorial primaries was not a member of Labour Party.
Olumide Akpata, a governorship aspirant of the party, recently expressed worries that a few weeks before the conduct of the party primary, guidelines had not been released by the national leadership of the party.
