Card Carrying Members Of Labour Party To Make Delegate List, Not Party Officials, Says party Chairman, Kelly Ogbaloi

By Ify Akuba

The Chairman of Edo State Labour Party, Comrade Kelly Ogbaloi has reiterated the Party’s commitment to enlist card carrying members of the Party as delegates in the February 24th Governorship primary election.

Comrade Kelly stated this while addressing some Newsmen in the Party Secretariat in Benin City.

He stressed that there is no level of protest by faceless individuals that will alter the Party’s arrangement to enlist members of the party as delegates in the primary election.

According to Comrade Kelly Ogbaloi, the party is working inline with the constitution to ensure the primary election that will produce the Party’s flag bearer is transparent and credible.

He said allowing party officials to serve as delegates could be pervasive as they could use their positions to influence the transparency and credibility of the primary process.

Comrade Kelly who also stressed that despite the ugly and unfortunate incident on Sunday where some faceless individuals armed with dangerous weapons protested to the party Secretariat, the leadership of the party had not deemed it necessary to accuse any Aspirant of sponsoring the protest , but was surprised to read and listen to news where a particular Aspirant is being defended by some persons .

“Despite the ugly experience on Sunday, we have not accused any Governorship Aspirant from our Party, but we were supprised at some persons who have been defending Barrister Olumide Akpata. So the question we are asking is Who is accusing him of sponsoring the protest?

“With the way the defenses are coming even when we have not accused any Aspirant,  he has not approach the leadership of the party uptill now but has People who are speaking to the media defending him. Such moves has kept us worried”.

Condemning the protest, the Chairman described their demands as undemocratic while emphasisizing that the Party executives from State to Ward level would not be delegates at the primary election in February 24.

According to him, the National Chairman of the Party, Barr. Julius Abure remains the constituted authority inline with the Party’s constitution to preside over the affairs of the Party.

“The Party’s constitution clearly outlined that the party shall formulate and develop process on how to manage it’s political affairs, and this is what the National Executive Committee ( NEC) has done and they are backed by the Constitution”

“According to NEC,our Congress is going to run from the ward to the local government where each local government will produce 5 persons per LGA , these persons will represent their LGAs at the Primary Election.”

Quoting the Electoral Act  of 2022 as amended  ,Comrade Kelly cited section 84, sub section 8 pointing that a situation where political party chooses indirect primaries, it shall outline it’s regulations and the process to midwife the primary election. In this case, Party officials are to allow card carrying members to participate in the democratic process and that is what we are doing” he added.

“We will not give rooms to action that will undermine our integrity as far as the primary election is concerned. The process will be transparent as much as possible and that will prepare us to win the Governorship Election in the State”

Comrade Kelly further appeal to members of the party and the general public to disregard false insinuations from unauthorized quarters as the Party Leadership is poised to ensure the process of the primary election is transparent and credible.