Edo Guber Poll : Lamidi Apapa’s letter to INEC fraudulent, says Labour Party

The Julius Abure-led Labour Party has dismissed as fraudulent a letter purportedly written by its estranged former Vice Chairman, Lamidi Apapa, to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), forwarding names of governorship candidates.

The party urged Nigerians to ignore attempts by renegade elements to create confusion within the polity.

National Publicity Secretary of the party, Obiora Ifoh, in a statement, in Abuja, on Sunday, said the party’s leadership was aware of the letter written by “a dissident group and former party members.”

According to him, Apapa and his group were seeking recognition for one Anderson Uwadiae Asemote and Monday Ojore Mawa as the gubernatorial and deputy governorship candidates respectively.

He, however, said the letter did not emanate from the party as such should be ignored.

Ifoh said, “Nigerians are sufficiently aware that the authors of the letter in circulation are fraudulent and desperate people seeking for recognition and also unrelentingly working towards obtaining by tricks from unsuspecting Nigerians as they have done in recent elections.

“As it is done in every corporate or governmental institutions, letters or any correspondences are received with a stamp of acknowledgement.

“As it is a custom, if you write any letter to INEC, the commission is expected to receive it after due verification.

“Though acknowledgement of a correspondent does not imply recognition or acceptance of its content, but we however insist that INEC must henceforth verify signatories of any future correspondences as it concerns Labour Party before acknowledgement.

“Nigerians will recall that on the 22nd of February, two other political parties; namely APC and PDP had their parties primaries and on the following day, Labour Party also had its primaries where it elected Barrister Olumide Akpata as its candidate.

“These events were televised live on notable television stations. INEC officials led by the state electoral commissioner also observed the very successful primaries.

“How on earth could a group of persons conduct a primary election that was not known or heard by the public and was not covered by the media, and went ahead to ask INEC to act on their correspondence.

“INEC knows that there was no primary; it did not supervise any other primary but the one conducted by the Party led by Barrister Julius Abure”, the statement said.