Mr. Ogbaloi Kelly Stephen Erukpe, Edo State Labour Party Chairman.
As the Labour Party National Chairman in Edo State, election has being postponed and it is not certain that the election will still hold on Wednesday next week as scheduled. Barring this circumstance and the brickbats that have accomplished this election, do you think your party the Labour Party has a chance in winning the election?
I will tell you yes, our chances as a party is ordinarily bright because with the extension of date so made by the INEC, we re-strategized and our strategies are strengthened more and fruitful. So from the indices before us we may have a chance.
Your governorship candidate and the party seems to be tolling different lines because in one or two occasions that your candidate was visible on campaigns platforms the party leadership was missing, is that to say that there is division in the party?
No! Certainly no division!! The leadership of the party is aware of what the governorship candidate is doing at every point in time; we are interacting, discussing and working out the formulas together. So if it is in a particular occasion and we are not immediately there is not enough to think that there is division in the party, we are definitely working together.
What is your take on the postponement of the election because a lot of persons believe that the ruling party (APC) in the state and federal colluded with the security apparatus INEC raise security alarm, knowing the election would not be in their favour. Do you believe there was security threat since Edo State is the safest State in the south-south and that the issue of Boko Haram threat has never ever been reported in Edo?
Well you know in every given circumstance were security issues are measured we try to moderate our comments because again we are no security experts and therefore it is usually very difficult to unearth exactly where there are security problems or not, so the ordinary man that is severe to security apparatus needs to be extremely careful actually making comings or issues of security. But given that that was advanced as reason why the date for the election was postponed, yes, we are sluggishly accepting that; in this regard I do not want to give in to the fact that perhaps the ruling party may have being up there to encumber the process, I think we leave it for now as the security reason by the INEC.
The KOWA Party and other parties have being endorsing a particular candidate of the two major contenders in the race that is strictly between the APC and the PDP, do you intend to collapse your structure for any of them?
Well, I maintain over and over again that Labour Party is not put out for that because we are determined we fight to the last. We are putting everything we have into this contest.
The fillers we get is that your party candidate Amos is on his own, your party leadership is on his own, therefore you are going to work at cross purposes at the election because the party structure does not seem to be in tandem with your candidate and as such at the very last end of the election you might want to work for a particular candidate, how true is that strong rumour?
Well, you see rumour must go whether or not rumour must. As a matter of fact you have no effort to withhold rumour. But however, I can tell you very categorically that Labour Party is not taking that perspective as of now but however, if you say that will happen, I don’t have the chances of it happening because we are working very closely with our candidate at the moment.
What is your message to Nigerians and Edo electorate, since Labour Party appears to have lost its bearing by failing to fill the political void created by the fumbling APC and PDP?
A: Well in that regard every man who works should understand Labour Party is his party but what we have seen so far is that everybody in the Nigeria arrangement is unduly politically conscious and therefore are taking to the extreme of thinking that everybody have right of choice to political matters. So, even if is Labour Party which is expected to be our party are having the choice to decide whether am going to be there or not. And of course you will agree with me that the individual, the leadership of Labour Party do not have the right in law to conscript members to be there.
I am sending a message to the bike riders, the taxi drivers, the bus man, the civil servants, the organized private sector that this is your party, let’s not run away from it. By the time you are exploiting those legalities in law and of course you will shortchange yourself in all of these because all these other parties which are there today none is actually your own. It is only Labour Party that your place is well spelt out. So my message is that every worker in the federation of this country should understand that Labour Party is there for you and that is the only we have here and let us exploit it together.
It is not a situation where you go to think oh, this is the particular choice I am making, to me I see that as very parochial and selfish indeed for you to think of vacating Labour Party and go to other political parties. This is moreso that some of us in the Labour Party today were signatories to the formation of Labour Party, so vacating the party to other parties is most disappointing and my message is that Labour Party is their party.
