Yesterday’s protest at the Abuja headquarters of the Labour Party (LP) by members of the Joe Ajaero-led Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) has deepened the party crisis.

The picketing of the LP’s secretariat was to ram in the demand by the NLC that the LP should put off its March 27 convention slated for Umuahia, the Abia State capital.

Abia State is the only one controlled by LP out of the 36 states.

The Labour centre also called for the resignation of LP national chairman Juliu Abure.

The LP Caucus in the House of Representatives has also called for the suspension of the planned convention.

But the Abure-led National Working Committee (NWC) rebuffed all the entreaties from party stakeholders, insisting that the convention must hold as planned.

Around 11am yesterday, the NLC members stormed the party’s headquarters and forcibly gained entry into the premises.

The invasion triggered a heated argument between the Head of Information of the NLC, Benson Upah with security agents stationed at the secretariat which led one of the security operatives drawing his gun.

After a few minutes of heated argument, the workers forced their way into the complex, a development that made the secretariat workers to abandon their desks.

The Labour leaders, led by the acting NLC Chairman (Political Commission), Theophilus Ndubuaku, demanded the sack of Abure as national chairman.

They (protesters) accused Abure of being a “sole administrator who unilaterally fixed the upcoming convention without input from stakeholders of the party.”

Ndubuaku said there had not been ward, local government and state congresses in the build up to the convention.

END.