Why Labour Party Lost Over 176 Lawmakers

Why Labour Party Lost Over 176 Lawmakers
He pledges support for Nenadi Usman-led leadership, urges unity.
Ex-LP scribe denies betraying Abure faction, calls for reconciliation.

Chief Clement Ojukwu, former National Organising Secretary of the Labour Party (LP), has attributed the party’s drastic loss of lawmakers since the 2023 general elections to internal litigations and leadership crises.

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EKO HOT BLOG reports that speaking in an interview in Abuja, Ojukwu explained that the party initially secured 34 seats in the House of Representatives, eight Senate seats, and about 80 seats in state Houses of Assembly. “Now we lost all of them. I don’t think we have up to five members in the National Assembly,” he lamented. He said that ongoing court cases and factional disputes had eroded the party’s cohesion, prompting many lawmakers to defect to other political parties.

Ojukwu, who was previously aligned with former National Chairman Julius Abure, declared his allegiance to the Senator Nenadi Usman-led leadership of the LP. He appealed to aggrieved members to put aside differences, withdraw pending litigations, and embrace reconciliation. “Litigations are killing political parties. LP is going down daily. I decided, for the interest of the party, to join hand to work with the caretaker committee to redeem the LP,” he said.

He highlighted that another election is approaching and called on all party members at the national, state, and local government levels to unite and rebuild the party. Ojukwu confirmed that the caretaker committee had established a reconciliation committee to facilitate dialogue and restore the LP’s status as the leading opposition party.

Dismissing claims of lingering factions, he said, “There is a verdict from court, and since they are valid and the rightful people are on the seat, factions no longer exist.” Addressing suggestions that his support for the Usman-led NWC was a betrayal of the Abure group, Ojukwu said, “Why I am with this group is because of the verdict. But I never betrayed anybody. Rather, I was betrayed.”