LP Crisis: Apapa Speaks on Reconciliation Talks

The factional chairman of the Labour Party, LP, Lamidi Apapa, has aired his view on what he will do if he is invited for reconciliation talks by the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.

Apapa stated this while speaking in an interview on Arise Television on Thursday.

He said, “Before I honour him, I will consult the executive of the party, so if they ask me to go ahead, I will do. If the executive says go ahead it becomes our position. 

“It’s not going to be my position. If they say go and see him or we are going to see him, it becomes the position of the party not the position of Alhaji Bashiru Lamidi Apapa. 

“All of us will collectively go and see him. That is if we have the mandate of the house that we are going to see him.”

Recall that Julius Abure, the party’s suspended national chairman, and Apapa’s group have been at odds over the direction of the party.

Announcing his presence in court as the party’s acting national chairman and confirming the status of the petition that Mr. Peter Obi, the party’s candidate, filed to contest the results of the 2023 presidential election, Apapa told reporters shortly after being freed from security agents’ protective custody that he was there to assert his authority.

He added that before the court began its proceedings, he sensed trouble, after the Director-General of Obi campaign organizations, Mr. Akin Osuntokun, refused to vacate a chair that was reserved for the chairman of the party.

Some factions of Peter Obi’s Labour Party clashed in court, Apapa was mobbed by some youths that were at the court to witness proceedings in the petition that Obi filed to challenge the outcome of the presidential election held on February 25.

Meanwhile, security operatives attached to the Court of Appeal in Abuja took Apapa into protective custody. Justice Haruna Tsammani-led five-member panel adjourned the petition till Friday for the continuation of the pre-hearing session