The Supreme Court dismissed Julius Abure as the national chairman of the Labour Party (LP) in a unanimous ruling on Friday.
The five-member panel of the apex court held that the Court of Appeal lacked the authority to declare Abure National Chairman of the Labour Party after previously concluding that the case’s substance concerned the party’s leadership, noting that Abure’s tenure had since expired and that matters of leadership are internal affairs of a political party over which courts have no jurisdiction.
A former senator from Kaduna South, Nenadi Usman, and another person filed an appeal, which the court granted, ruling it to be meritorious.
The cross-appeal submitted by the Abure group of the Labour Party was then dismissed for lack of merit.
Recall that the party’s national treasurer, Oluchi Oparah, declared in February that Abure had embezzled N3.5 billion. In response, the Labour Party chairman disputed the accusation and threatened legal action.
According to the claim, party members demanded that Abure be fired.
Following this, Hamza Muazu, the presiding judge, also prohibited national secretary Farouk Ibrahim, national organizing secretary Clement Ojukwu, and Opara from posing as party national officers in his ruling on an ex parte application.
This is coming fter Abia State Governor Alex Otti called a party stakeholders meeting in Umuahia on September 4, Usman was named chair of a 29-member caretaker committee.
Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi and his running mate Datti Baba-Ahmed were among the high-ranking party officials who attended the gathering.
Abure’s leadership was also declared illegitimate by INEC, which claimed that the national convention had broken the Electoral Act and the Constitution.
The electoral commission insisted that Abure’s term as Labour Party national chair ended in June 2024 and said that the party had not complied with the law’s conditions for hosting the convention.
However, the federal high court upheld the Abure-led leadership and the Nnewi convention in March 2024, which resulted in the party executives, in a ruling on October 8.
The presiding judge, Emeka Nwite, directed INEC to acknowledge Abure as the party’s lawful chairman.
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