LP Leadership: Court Affirms Usman-Led Committee, Orders INEC Recognition

A FEDERAL High Court in Abuja, has affirmed the Usman Nenadi-led Caretaker Committee of the Labour Party (LP), thereby sacking Julius Abure as National Chairman of the party.
In a judgment delivered on Wednesday, January 21, on the suit, marked: THC/ABJ/CS/2262/2025, instituted by Usman, the presiding Judge, Justice Lifu, relying on the April 4, last year, verdict of the Supreme Court, declare the former minister and senator as the authentic leader of the party.
Aside from Abure, the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) was also cited as a defendant in the matter.
The Judge also ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to immediately recognise the 29-member Usman-led Caretaker Committee as the only valid authority to represent LP, pending when the party convenes a national convention.
The Judge held that evidence before him established that Abure’s tenure as the national chairman of the party had since elapsed.
While dismissing Abure’s contention that the matter was an internal party affair and not justiceable, the court held that the establishment committee was “a necessity” arising from the Supreme Court order.
Recall that on January 9, LP’s National Working Committee (NWC) also recognised Usman as its national leader, following the Supreme Court judgment that Abure’s tenure of Abure had elapsed.
Abure had challenged his ouster at the Federal High Court in Abuja to retain his position. In an affidavit he personally deposed to in support of the suit, marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/1271/2024, he told the court that following the death of the national chairman of the party, he was lawfully elected as the acting national chairman at a National Executive Council (NEC) meeting on March 29, 2021, in Benin City, the Edo State capital.
He told the court that on April 18, 2023, at the NEC meeting in Asaba, Delta State, duly monitored by INEC, it was resolved that tenures of state shairmen whose tenures had expired be renewed.
It was at the same meeting, he added, that some members engaged in anti-party activities were expelled and replacements for vacant positions.
Abure stated that consequently, the party held its national convention on March 27, 2024, at Nnewi, Anambra State, where he was lawfully elected.
Both the High Court and the Court of Appeal upheld Abure’s case and ordered INEC to recognise him, but this was punctured by the Supreme Court’s nullification of the lower courts judgments.
The apex court dismissed a cross-appeal filed by Abure and charged political parties to always abide by their own rules in the appointment of their officers, and political parties’ official whose tenures have elapsed to learn to vacate their positions.