Plans by the immediate past governor of Ondo state, Dr Olusegun Mimiko, to return to the Labour Party may have hit the rocks.
Reason: The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Labour Party have rejected his moves to pitch tent again with the Labour Party which he left in 2014 to rejoin the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
Dr Mike Omotosho, Chairman, Labour Party told newsmen in Abuja on Wednesday that they do not want Mimiko again in their midst.
Omotosho said the party has no candidate for the forthcoming governorship election in Ekiti State.
Omotosho said the NLC was fully aware of plans by Mimiko to destabilise the current gains being made by workers to reclaim and re-position the Labour Party.
He said: “It is very obvious that the sole purpose of Mimiko’s re-approach to Labour Party is to use the workers’ party to launder his sagging political image.
“Nigerians would recall that Mimiko abandoned the Labour Party for the Peoples Democratic Party a few days to Labour Party’s October 2015 National Convention.
“Such a treachery and betrayal of a party that gave the former Governor succour in the darkest hour of his political career.
“Especially, as it manifests in his two term victory on the ticket of Labour Party is to say the least, cheap and callous.
“It also revealed paucity of knowledge of the philosophy of the Labour Party as a people rooted party and dearth of class consciousness on his part.”
He said the Labour Party was an offspring of the working class family and was midwifed by the labour movement.
He also said that the party was the political vehicle for Nigerian workers and the Nigerian poor.
He added that the party was also founded on the cornerstone of ideological clarity and class consciousness to promote and defend the political cum socio-economic interest of the working people.
“There is no doubt that political journey persons like the former governor of Ondo had in the past taken advantage of the leadership challenges in the Labour Party to satisfy their fantasies for political opportunism.
“The labour movement, in alliance with its civil society partners and other patriotic Nigerians, is poised to fully reclaim the Labour Party and restore it as a model political institution.
“That does not only epitomise the values of the working class family but also capable of contesting for power with members of a failed political class, with whom the former Governor dines and wines,’’ he added.
The chairman further said that the leadership of the congress would continues to work to rebuild the Labour Party, especially through the instrumentality of the Political Commission.
He, however, urged all workers and indeed genuine lovers of popular democracy to ignore the political theatrics of people like the former Governor of Ondo state.
“He has shown Nigerian workers that he cannot be trusted. The Labour Party is no longer a transit bus to strange political destinations, particularly under the subterfuge of people like him.
“In the same vein, the Nigeria Labour Congress wishes to categorically disown and-condemn recent posturing and proclamations by some ‘politicians in Ekiti State.
“That they are the candidates of the Labour Party in the forthcoming governorship elections in Ekiti State.
“The Labour Party has no candidate in the July 14, 2018 governorship election in Ekiti State.
“lNEC, workers and the Ekiti electorate should not allow themselves to be hoodwinked by the antics of political impostors,’’ Omotosho said.
Omotosho, however, warned that all political aspirants in the Labour Party were requested to deal only with the Screening Committee of the party.