 Welcome back to the breakfast. It's time for our first hot topic and we want to take a look at the crisis rock in the Labour Party even as the cardinistic chapter of that party suspends three of its chit-tains and has distanced itself from the ilamidi apapafansion. We have our guest Mr. Loh Mefo who is a political analyst. Good morning to you Mr. Mefo. Good morning. Alright, the party... Yes, can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you, loud and clear. Good morning, thank you for seeing me. Welcome. Alright, so the Labour Party is divided along two lines with the main party trying to clean the stable of that party by suspending those found wanting. But before we go into this discussion, we have a report on this very development play. Hereby affirm and assert our loyalty, support and commitment to the Labour Party and the National Working Committee of our great party led by our lawfully recognized National Challenge by Mr. Jullo's Aburi. All appointments and decisions made by the APAPA group on behalf of our great party remain null and full. All identified cardinistic members of the Labour Party who were part of the so-called next meeting that took place in Bauchi. In Bauchi State, when they taught me 2022, hereby stand suspended from the party. The ruling party are sponsoring some of our people so that they will take charge of the Labour Party in order to ease way for them to go and say, okay, we have drawn our case in the manner so that they have easy right. We remain resolute. We remain one. To create division in the party so that they can scuttle this reclaiming of our collective mandate. That is what is playing out. And that group that continues to parade themselves as a faction of the party, parade in one Lamele and APAPA as a fractional chairman of the party. They are not. The intent is to tear the party. They have not hidden it. They have been saying it. I am not the one saying it. I am accusing Mr. Peter Obey and the people of Ahmed as having been working for the PDP. And so their mission is to deal with them. Deal with them means when they take over the party, they will withdraw the case and explain them from the party. Oh, well, Mr. Law before you saw that, you heard that report, right? And I have been following the development in the Labour Party for quite some time now. And I am very disturbing, very unfortunate. The Labour Party rather than manager, it is an unexpected victory at various levels. It is trying to factionalise and then bring it to public approval. What has always happened to political parties in Nigeria, we expect that part, that Labour will be different. And stay away from establishment efforts. But this is not what is playing out. But I want us to also see it as an external aggression. The external forces beyond the party itself are trying to infiltrate the party. I listened to some of the comments made. And then one of the commentators was specific about the goal, the primary, strategical objective of this caution into the labour. And yes, two factions exist and live itlessly also. Because if you look at it, Lamidi Apapa was the deputy national chairman of Labour for ourselves. And where the national chairman advocates, normally the deputy national chairman from that part of the country, assumes the office in acting capacity until convention. This is what is playing out. But the question is why is Lamidi Apapa doing this to his own party when they are in the tribunal with very strong chances of even making a case and possibly clutching the presidency. Or at least consolidating on the fortunes of Labour. For me, like I said before, I see external aggression. There is a hijack going on, a hijack. The court has wedded in. There are two court orders. And I think the final resolution of the court appeal. Since one court order is in favour of Julius, the incumbent national chairman, another court order seems to favour Lamidi Apapa faction. Since the two orders are coming from courts of a coordinated jurisdiction, high courts, in this case. The only way to resolve it is to hate to appeal. And I am aware that both the factions have hated to appeal. And I think they need to really shift their shots and allow the appellate court to determine which faction is valid and should be considered the authentic national chairman or authentic national executive of the party whether it is authentic or acting capacity. I want to advise that look, what is before Labour at the moment is legal fireworks at the tribunal. And they need to all face it. You see, if a faction makes an attempt to withdraw the case before the presidential election tribunal, it will not stand because Obi-Wan is the number one petitioner followed by Labour. So if Labour withdraws and Obi-Wan does not withdraw, the case will go on. But it will cause some credibility issues because it has divided against itself hardly stands. If you recall, where the chief Edwin Ubezoke, former Speaker of House of Representatives, was the chairman of all the people's party, EPP, presidential election held with the Buhari as said the presidential flag bearer of the party. The party withdrew from the case but Buhari continued. So I just made the reference to that for now. We have to know that the withdrawal of Labour from the case will not stop there, unless it will be in self-decise to withdraw but it will cause credibility issues because presidential election petitions are both legal and political. This means that the political angle of the case will become a bit weaker but not completely validated because at the end of the day, we expect that it is the facts that will speak for the petitioners. If the facts speak for the petitioners, particularly for Labour, and Labour is able to factually prove that it won that election. So the justices will have no choice because their hands must have been tied. This is my overall impression about this. I think it is not good and Labour is not obeying itself any good at all. And going forward also for Ube and Ubedians, they need to learn from what is going on and they have to reinvent themselves and begin to think critically about even exiting the Labour completely and form a brand new political party. That may be the way to go. If this issue is not resolved, it may be the ultimate solution for Ube and Ubedians. Ubedians are not a political party. Ubedians are people who follow an ideology. That's why I said they need to consider seriously going forward. This is the point I want to make. If they are not a political party and they follow an ideology, it doesn't matter the name that it assumes. Whether it's still Labour Party or Ube, who they are following, moves to another party, they will still move to that party. Now, if you say that they have to reinvent themselves and move to another party, a lot of them are not even Labour Party members. So what other solution can we have to solve this problem, especially within the Labour Party? Because Labour Party is not Labour Party. Labour Party is a third force that if there are fifth columnists, the people who are the external forces, like you said, are trying to disrupt the process within that party. So wherever they move to, these external forces will still follow them there. So can we find a permanent solution that doesn't have to depend on a name? You see, if you understand the rule of political parties in a presidential democracy, you will see that there is no alternative to it. Because in our constitution, there is no provision for independent candidates. What that means is that you must come by way of political parties. If that is the only pathway available to the obedience, they cannot contest elections in Nigeria as obedience. That is one issue that must be resolved quickly. If they don't resolve it, they will have a problem. Why they are not famed on the ground in Labour is because they joined Labour. Okay, technical glitches there. I hope we are able to reconnect with Mr Law Mepho. Hello Mr Law Mepho, have you been able to reconnect with us? Alright, well Aunty, we'll get him back. We just have to banter, don't we? I was wondering, and it is him to talk about it, is because obedience cut across party lines. There are APC members who are obedience. There are Afghan people who are obedience. There are AA people all across board. There are people who identify with the ideology and the man who they have chosen to bear the flag for them for the kind of life they want their leader to be. So wherever they go to, if they are at threat, no matter what name they assume, there will still be a threat to the people who don't want them to exist. So if they are the ones paying others to disrupt the party, they will still be paying them no matter what umbrella they go under. So I'm wondering if there could be a permanent solution and that's what I really wanted him to talk about. He was trying to give that answer. But one of the things that I know is that all the parties have their problems. All of them, APC, PDP, and then of course Labour Party. Labour Party's crisis right now is as critical as it is because of the fact that they're in court, because they are the third force that has shaken the political narrative of late and the fact that the leadership, the national chairman has been involved in this umbrella that has led to a court ruling that's told him to stop parodying himself as the chairman of the party. But what are the implications of that? Can't the party move forward from there? Well, like Mr. Mifosa said, whether the party dies or not, whether it splits or not, there was an avenue through which Peter B emerged, contested. So they cannot say he came as an independent candidate. So there was a party, whether it dies today or not. And then he is going there as a person and the petition is in his name. Labour Party also gave their petition, but whether the Labour Party withdraws, Obie can still continue with it. That's one good thing about it. Obie can still continue with his own petition. It doesn't have to be that Labour withdrew and Obie lost. So whoever is paying these people, maybe he's not even also thinking about the fact that Obie, though contested under a party, is still somewhat independent when it comes to the case that is in court. Isn't it interesting, isn't it, that La Media Papa is being... Well, I don't want to say some things because we have no evidence to it. But the role he's playing in all of these and broadly working in the party is quite surprising because I do understand that the Labour Party south-west had collapsed its entire structure, and that's few days to the presidential election. Well, they debunked that. The governorship candidate came in our studio and debunked it that some people were probably those people who are now blossoming and doing what they're doing now, either ones that are parodying themselves or saying that the Labour Party has collapsed their structure. In that same breath where we heard that Labour Party collapsed their structure, we also heard that in some places in some local government, APC and the PDP collapsed their structure into Labour. Exactly. So everybody was collapsing and collapsing in another person's mind. Political calculations, horse trading. People have price tags. It's unfortunate, but especially in politics, there are no permanent enemies or friends. It's interest that matters to a lot of politicians. And it's unfortunate that in our crime, we do not have, as we have really established over time in the course of our discussions, political discussions, there are no ideologies. People just move from one party to another party as easily as you can spread butter on your bread and it's not good for the polity. It's not good for a position. It's not good for... But I've been told that we have Mr Lomba for back online. Hello, Mr Mefo. Yeah, sorry for the glitch. Okay. There was a glitch, I'm sorry about that. It's all of our glitch alleges in Nigeria at the moment. It's a welcome back. There was a very beautiful question my brother asked. What is the way moving forward? And I was stressing the fact that, look, I will come into the extant laws operating at the moment to not permit independent candidates. What that means is that you participate through a political party. Obedients, like we recognized, they are not a political party. And I am saying the problem they have in Nerebo is because they joined the adopted member as a platform. They are not Nerebo party members in the main. Many of them who joined Nerebo is just out of necessity and they are ready to move if it becomes really necessary. Now, you see, because it was an emergency arrangement and they used the platform for this presidential election, they need to manage the process carefully for the outcome because they allow it to affect their chances at the Charbonne and ultimately at the Supreme Court. They only have themselves to blame. You see, the establishment forces have moved against them. We should be expected. They should know that. Power is not the al-Aqat. You have to take it. That's the truth of our political process. It means that they have to be more strategic, more tactical in their approach. They are not to blame for what has happened. It is the establishment forces that are in favor of doing and trying to hijack the platform they use using some internal collaborators to achieve and their ultimate aim, like a rally identified by one of the commentators, is to see if they can hold on and enjoy the petition they have at the Charbonne and, since this is the most likely aim of the faction, they have one protection going for them. I mentioned that before, that Ubi is the number one petitioner and Labour Party is number two on the presidential petition. And it is the Labour Party withdrawals in an unlikely event that they succeed in withdrawing. It cannot stand unless Ubi himself also withdraws from the base which is not likely to happen. It also, that for me, is resting for one part. But you remember that I also said that presidential election petition is both political and legal. The political angle can be affected, slightly at least, because the optics, the public perception, we could be impression that Labour himself is not there, is not serious. And the judges themselves are also human beings. But if they are present in the United Solid Front, very solid front, because a house divided against itself cannot stand, if they are united, the possibility of getting something out of the tribe will be there. So... Would you say that these suspensions that we are hearing from the different chapters is a strong enough indication that they are cleaning up and that they are getting stronger? Well, the suspensions and counter suspensions, you know, these are the great capacity to find and develop in the political process. We do not need to worry much about that until the court says so. Anybody can say anything. You are suspended and I suspend you. Like I told you, there are two factions because the court, the two courts of coordinate jurisdiction have validated the two thoughts for the same. You know, what that means is that let me say a firm faction has some recognition under the law, Julius faction has recognition under the law, to set aside any of them, you have to go to the appellate court and the two factions are heading that way. Indeed, the presidential petition is ongoing. So, you know, a peer court and ultimately the Supreme Court speak on which faction is valid. There is nothing anybody can say from now and that will really determine that is so definitive. It will not. It will not. It's just an opinion. That's the point I'm trying to make. And when I don't... Yes, let's wrap up. Okay. I believe that even the victims are not able to take over NEPO as a platform. They must consider seriously about the trans... you know, transiting into a political party. They have the number, they have the spread. So, they will finally be registered as a political party. And we will not advise that they are not a party. I advise they constitute themselves into a political party. That's my candid advice. All right. Thank you very much, Mr. Lorme, for coming on the programme. It's always a delight to have you join us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for hosting me. Thank you. We've been talking with Mr. Lorme for a political analyst and we're looking at what is happening in the Labour Party. We do hope that the problems within the Labour Party will be resolved soon. And we're looking forward to a very, very bright Nigeria. We don't want to lose any of the political parties that has made impact in these elections and the political sphere. We'll take a short break now. When we return, we'll be talking tech with our guests. Stay with us.