BY: Nick Nwaneri, Calabar
As the on-going internal leadership tussle becomes messy between the two factions of Labour party in Cross River State, the Organised Labour group led by Comrade Godwin Amoikwen has threateed to sue the factional leader, Amb. Ogar Osim for impersonation, forgery and perjury.
This is coming on the heels of disagreements over the authentic candidates to represent the party in the forthcoming 2023 elections.
“While Amoikwen claims to have conducted party primaries which according to him produced verifiable candidates, Amb. Ogar Osim is keeping his list to himself thereby fueling allegations of impropriety”.
Based on the forgoing, Comr. Amoikwen posits that Amb. Osim fraudulently used placeholders on the list submitted to INEC with the motive of later selling party tickets to the highest bidders during the windows for substitution of candidates, sources close to the party has said.
Speaking to Our Correspondent, he said; “I am monitoring Osim very closely and will have him jailed for impersonation, forgery and perjury at the appropriate time.”
“On the possibility of presenting a common front for the 2023 elections, Amoikwen blamed Osim for the impasse and protraction of the disagreements, stressing that even as Osim came from nowhere and started parading himself as state chairman when there was a validly constituted interim executive headed by him as the State Chairman of Organised Labour’s Political Commission, they reluctantly received him while looking forward to a robust relationship. But to my utter dismay, immediately he was accepted into the fold Osim started exhibiting the traits of a conqueror and never bothered to seek the advice or imput of organised labour in the running of the party.”
Comr. Amoikwen further pointed out that; “the constitution of Labour party provides slots for Organised Labour among the six State Deputy Chairmen of the party, comprising; one for each senatorial district, one for women, and with a minimum of two slots for Organised Labour.
He went on to say that ” the inclusion of Labour at the top echelon of the party is an indication that the founders of the party wanted Organised Labour included in the decision making processes of the party.”
“Still on the issue of rejection of the list of candidates produced by Organised Labour, he said “after receiving Amb. Ogar Osim into the party and provided him the necessary materials to help him work, we wanted to harmonise our structures being that winning elections requires unity of purpose, we therefore invited him for series of meetings which he spurned.He evaded us with one flimsy excuse and the other.”
Continuing, he said, “seeing that he was not forthcoming, and deadline for the notification of INEC for the conduct of primaries was perilously close, we were compelled to invite INEC and other relevant stakeholders to witness primary elections to be conducted by us. We had successful primaries which produced verifiable candidates. We learnt that he later gathered nine persons at his office in Ambo and conducted a charade of a primary that produced over forty candidates who are his placeholders.”
