The Factional Chairman of the Labour Party (LP) in Cross River State, Mr Godwin Amoikwen, has threatened to sue the party’s factional leader Ogar Osim for allegations of impersonation, fraud and perjury.
This is after a series of disputes regarding the genuine candidates who will be the party’s representatives at the 2023 general elections for the state.
Amid a conflict of factional nature ever since Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) began its activities for the general elections in 2023 Amoikwen, Amoikwen and Osim were at war about who is the true state chairperson of the party.
Amoikwen who is the current Political Commission Chairman and former Secretary of the party claimed that Osim was claiming to be the state chairman. He claimed that, based on the concept of succession, Osim succeeded his previous Chairman of the Political Commission, the late Mr Joseph Inde, who quit for a more prestigious job.
According to him, in 2020 He was instructed by the then state chairman of Organised Labour to act in an interim capacity in lieu of Congress’s conduct.
Amoikwen claimed Osim had erroneously used placeholders from the list provided to INEC to facilitate offering party ticket sales to the most expensive bidders in the window to substitute candidates.
He added: “I am monitoring Osim closely and will have him jailed for impersonation, forgery and perjury at the appropriate time.”
When asked about the decision to reject the list of potential candidates put together by Organised Labour, he explained: “After receiving Osim into the Labour Party and providing him with the required materials to assist to work with us, we decided to align our structures considering the fact that winning an election requires a united front We invited him to several meetings, but Osim declined. We gave him one weak excuse or another.”
“Seeing that there was no response from him and that the deadline for notification of INEC to conduct primaries was approaching we felt compelled to invite INEC as well as other stakeholders to observe the primary elections that were to be held by us. We conducted primaries that were successful which resulted in verifiable candidates. We were informed that he brought together nine people at his office of his in Ambo and then staged an elaborate scheme of a primary that resulted in more than 40 candidates, who serve as his”replacement candidates.”
When asked to respond to the claimed threat, Osim simply said the group is in a peace conference. He also said that within a short time each misunderstanding will be settled.
