The Labour Party on Sunday said the purported endorsement of President Goodluck Jonathan by the party’s National Executive Council meeting in Ibadan, Oyo State recently, was done by impostors.
While dissociating itself from the purported endorsement, the party said it did not endorse any candidate and would not do so as far as the 2015 general elections was concerned.
The Chairman, National Caretaker Committee of the LP, Alhaji Salisu Nuhu Mohammed, who made the clarification during a press briefing in Abuja, however, expressed the hope that the party would present a presidential candidate for 2019 election.
He said, “We have on many occasions stated this and I need to re-emphasise this even at the pains of being accused of repetition: Labour Party is not fielding any presidential candidate in the 2015 elections. All those who parade themselves as leaders of the LP and go about deceiving members of the public on their status are impostors.
“The so-called NEC meeting, said to have been held on March 11, 2015 in Ibadan, Oyo State, was an illegality; it had no powers to adopt any person or persons for any political office. For the avoidance of doubt, the LP has not gone into any alliance, merger or understanding with any of the existing political parties, including the Peoples Democratic Party, the All Progressives Party and any other party for that matter.
“Therefore, we are not endorsing President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party or General Muhammed Buhari of the All Progressives Congress”.
The caretaker committee chairman pointed out that NLC members were free to exercise their franchise and vote in line with their conscience and not according to the dictates of A. A. Salam.
He also lamented the conduct of the embattled Governor of Ebonyi State, Mr. Martins Elechi, who he said was not a card-carrying member of the party but “dissolved the party in his state to save himself from impeachment”.
“In a bid to save himself from impeachment, Martins Elechi opportunistically obeyed a directive given to him by the PDP to collapse the LP in the state to the PDP. It seems there is no limit to the absurdity the likes of A.A. Salam will be willing to go in their desperate bid for personal aggrandizement”, Mohammed stated.