INEC declared LP’s leadership including Abure invalid and did not recognise the party’s March 2024 National Convention, which claimed to re-elect Abure as chairman.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has confirmed that Julius Abure’s tenure as the National Chairman of the Labour Party (LP) expired in June 2024.
INEC made this known in a counter-affidavit filed in response to LP’s suit challenging its exclusion from INEC’s refresher training for uploading party agents ahead of the Edo and Ondo states governorship elections.
INEC declared LP’s leadership including Abure invalid and did not recognise the party’s March 2024 National Convention, which claimed to re-elect Abure as chairman.
According to the electoral umpire, the convention violated the Constitution and Electoral Act, adding that it only engages with parties that have valid and subsisting leadership.
In a written address in support of the counter-affidavit, INEC’s legal team, led by TankoInuwa (SAN), argued that LP’s suit was seeking declaratory reliefs, which could not be granted as a matter of course or based on mere admissions.
The team contended that LP must succeed on the strength of its case, even in the face of admissions. The commission’s lawyers further submitted that having failed to comply with the extant legal frameworks in conducting its national convention, “LP does not have a valid leadership that INEC can engage.”
They urged the court to dismiss the suit, insisting that LP was not entitled to the reliefs sought. INEC claimed it did not monitor, participate in or recognise the purported National Convention of LP on March 27, 2024, in Anambra State, where Abure claimed to have been re-elected. It argued that the convention was conducted in breach of the Constitution, Electoral Act 2022, INEC’s Regulations and Guidelines for Political Parties 2022, and LP’s Constitution 2019.
As of August 16, 2024, when the refresher training notice was issued, the commission asserted that LP had no valid national chairman or secretary, as their tenure had elapsed in June.