Only Ordinary Card Carrying Members Of LP Will Make Delegates List Not Executives

Only Ordinary Card Carrying Members Of LP  Will Make Delegates List Not Executives

The  Edo state Labour Party Chairman, Comrade Kelly Ogbaloi has said that 

only Ordinary Card Carrying Members Of LP Will form the delegates list that would pick the candidate in the Congresses coming up on the 24th of February 2024.

He made the disclosure yesterday while fielding questions from newsmen at the state party Secretariat in Benin City the Edo state capital.

According to Comrade Kelly Ogbaloi,

"essentially , those who are eligible to be members of the delegates for the primaries are those common card carrying members of the party and not officials of the part, and  that is the point we are making  because the officials could be pervasive and could use their various offices to influence the purity  and outcome of what we want to achieve and that is why they are not eligible to be members of the delegates.

He added that the incident that happened that Sunday where protesters stormed the venue of their meeting to protest the exclusion of officials of the party from participating in the primaries was unfortunate 

"The incident that  took place while we were having a meeting on Sunday at the Secretariat was most unfortunate. Yes, some persons came to us  while we were having a meeting. They were in a protest, armed with dangerous weapons.   But we as a party at this level have not accused any aspirant and that is why we are more surprised at some of the sporadic defenses that have been made by some persons on behalf of Barrister Olumide Akpata. So, the question we ask is, who is accusing him? Why is he therefore moving from one news medium to the other defending the situation. Why is he listening to anonymity ? 

"I remember vividly on that day that I granted an interview to Arise Television and the Channels Television and there was nothing in my statement that suggested that we were  suspicious of any aspirant. So, when we heard that Olumide was moving from here and there even though he has not even bothered to get across to the hierarchy of Labour Party till date but making defenses and some other persons are falling over heels defending him saying he is not the one who organized and sponsored the protest and so we got surprised and inundated because this party at this level has not accused anyone or linked anyone to the protest and that is why we are surprised that he is busy trying to absorb himself from any complicity. So, these were the surprises we had when we heard  people were saying oh it is not Olumide that did it and if you look at the defenses, Olumide seems to be more prime because I have not even heard those making these defenses talk about other aspirants. It is surprising to us as a party because nobody has accused Olumide of any involvement so why these sporadic defenses of Olumide? And that is why we are beginning to now ask who has accused him?

He further added that some individuals have been arrested by the police in connection with the dangerous protest

"Some persons were arrested in connection with the matter and the matter is already being investigated by the police and it is not for us to grope over who did or did not. This is a political period and I am of the view that anything can happen, so we, as a party, will not make the mistake of pointing accusing fingers at anybody but we will rather go to the law enforcement agents just as we have done already and allow them to investigate and at the end of the day those found guilty should be made to face the consequences. But as it were presently, I do not know within the confines of the party where any aspirant has been accused of being responsible for what happened that day.

Speaking further on the protest, Comrade Kelly Ogbaloi pointed out that the protesters were protesting the exclusion of officials of the party from the Party's primaries

"According to the protesters, their own reason for the protest was that executives  of the party were being excluded from participating at the congresses at the ward level, local government level and at the primary itself and therefore they have come to say or ask why is the national chairman, Barrister Julius Abure involved in the issues of the primary and the election as it were. But the surprises are that the national chairman is the chairman of the party and so he is needed in every facet of the operations of the party especially political matters and it is not therefore for some individuals out there to now suggest to the party who should participate in or deciding how the party should conduct its affairs because the sections of the constitution has clearly stated that the Party shall define, formulate and develop processes by which matters of politics and political arrangements will be carried out by the Party and the national chairman is at the apex of all of these and how therefore does anyone says they are contesting against the national chairman participating in an election that is happening right in a state where he is from and in a party where he is the national chairman?

Continuing he said, "deriving from the Party's constitution, which has given the power to the NEC and the national working committee to formulate policies, procedures, regulations in running a political exercise has ceded the powers to do all the functions to run a political activities in any given state on the strength of that constitution, the leadership of the party has decided in line with the constitution and  has decided the format of the primaries and that is what they have done and they are backed by the power of the constitution to do or decide the format of the primaries and that is the power they have so exercised, to sit in council and decide how a political affair of a political party will run and that is why in  that particular guideline, the NEC,  of the party came together to say that we shall run congresses at the ward level and at the local government level where 5 persons per  local government will be midwife to come to the state for the primaries and this is legitimate because our own constitution provides that we are right to do that. 

"The  1999 Nigeria constitution as amended also gives us power to do what we are doing and the electoral act, specifically, in section 84 sub section 8 also stated that any political party that chooses indirect primaries shall outline completely in the regulation and constitution the democratic pathern to midwife the delegates that would go for such an exercise. So, this particular act has also given the power to the officers of the party to run as we are currently doing but what we are seeing is that people have erroneously come to 

interpret section 84 sub section 12 to mean that officers of the party have the legitimacy to participate in the Congresses and be members of delegates for the primaries and we say no, because such would be undemocratic  because how do you explain that the chairman of the party at the state level or the chairman of the party at the local government level deploys himself to the exercise where  he is fundamentally expected to superintend the congresses himself becomes a delegate eventually to then elect the candidate. The party says that such would be undemocratic and such should not be allowed to be. But yet, because of the pecuniary issues that have been introduced into our politics by some political parties, we could see some of us within the party looking at the pecuniary things they could get from the primary and therefore are beginning to insist that they are permitted to be members of the delegates. How are you permitted as a chairman, secretary, treasurer either at the local government, at the ward level or at the state level to now make yourself an arbiter in your own matter. In this  case, we are supposed to appear as the INEC to give the ordinary card carrier members of the party the opportunity to participate in the democratic process of the party and that is what we are doing. So, if you are a boss and you want to continue to be the boss in perpetuity, then where is the democracy? At what time would the lesser category of the members of the society breath? So this is what we are talking about. We are surprised that some of our leaders are now rigorously throwing their weight behind the idea that officials of the party should form part of the delegates for the primaries and adding that nothing prohibits them from participating in the primary but we are also advancing morality into the discussion because you can not separate these phenomenon  and so we are bringing morality to bear on our politics because if you expunge morality from politics, then we would fail. So, if  I, as a state chairman of the party now decides to go to the local government level to find a way to become a delegate, is that morally justifiable? No. So when these leaders are jostling and falling over themselves making cases for this position, we are asking where is the morality we lay claims to when we speak in public, when we say we are agitating for rights? What rights are you talking about as a leader when you come out publicly to make case for this absurdity?

"Essentially , those who are eligible to be members of the delegates for the primaries are those common card carrying members of the party and not officials of the party that is the point we are making  because the officials could be pervasive and could use their various offices to influence the purity  and outcome of what we want to achieve and that is why they are not eligible to be members of the delegates.

"Again on the issue of the number of delegates for the primaries for which some have said the number should not be less than  300 is laughable because if you are saying we must have up to 300 delegates for the primaries then you should be able to link it to a status that succinctly states what the number should be and so if a legislator of the national assembly is saying that the number should not be less than 300 then he should tell us what are the laws that specifically stipulates and detailed the number of delegates for the primaries. 

"However, they are wrong because the constitution has given the powers to the NEC and the national working committee to legislate on the number that will be required that is manageable. Non of these persons have been able to come out to give us their reasons for suggesting that we shouldn't have less than 300 delegates. What is their reasons? Is it that they want the party to have such unmanageable number so as to bring the primaries to rubble,  So that at the end of the day Labour Party would be quoted to have been ineffective in their primaries? They should be able to tell the world the specific number you must get for the primaries. But again I wonder if these ones are INEC anyway. So, you can see some of our leaders within our society lending credence to all of these laughable attitudes they are exhibiting. 

"The national working committee in their wisdom consulted the constitution before they came out with the format we are working with, so if there was a statutory number contained in the constitution, they would have given the instructions to the number of delegates required.

"The esteem members of labour Party are therefore advised to disregard insinuations coming from unauthorized quarters but to adhere only to the pronouncements coming from the authorized quarters of the party and not any other persons or any dissidents within the society because the party's position on any issue concerning the party is sancrosanct".