Perhaps, the leadership tussles in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party may be resolved this week as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) scheduled to hold its regular quarterly consultative meeting with leadership of the 19 registered political parties on Thursday.

The commission’s meeting with Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), involves Chairmen and Secretaries of these parties.

Before the April 4 Supreme Court judgement that sacked Julius Abure and members of his National Working Committee (NWC), Abure and Alhaji Umar Farouak represented the Labour Party at the meeting.

However, at one of the meetings, Abure and former President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Abdulwahab Omar, who was appointed into the Caretaker Committee of the party, were excluded, because of the controversy surrounding the leadership of the Labour Party at that time.

Abure had to be walked out of the meeting, because no invitation was extended to his party.

On its part, the PDP was always represented by the acting National Chairman, Ambassador Umar Damagum and Secretary, Senator Samuel Anyanwu.

Last week, INEC rejected a notice of meeting sent to it by PDP for the party’s June 30 proposed National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting, citing irregular signatures.

The commission, in a letter with reference number, INEC/DEPM/PDP/286/iii/80, and dated June 13, said “The notice is not in compliance with the requirement of part 2(12)3 of the Regulations and Guidelines for Political Parties, 2022 that provides the National Chairman and National Secretary of the Party shall jointly sign the notice of convention, congress, conference or meeting and submit same to the commission.”

The letter was signed by Haliru Aminu, acting Secretary to the Commission. The PDP letter was signed only by Damagum.

The leadership of the Labour Party and the National Secretaryship of the PDP have been in contention since this year.

PDP governors had appointed Setonji Koshoedo as acting National Secretary after the Supreme Court judgement that invested in political parties with the power to choose their leaders.

Last May, when online news report alleged that INEC has recognised Anyanwu as PDP National Secretary and Abure as National Chairman of Labour Party, the commission in a statement on X signed by the Chief Secretary to the Chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi, said it has not made any decision in either the of the parties.

Said the commission “The names of the national officers of the LP had previously been uploaded to our website following a court order, not related in any way to the latest judgement of the Supreme Court. In the same manner, the name of the National Secretary of the PDP on the same website was neither deleted nor reinstated.”

The Certified True Copy (CTC) of the Supreme Court judgement sacking Abure was submitted to INEC by a team of Labour Party leaders led by Governor Alex Otti of Abia State since April.

But the commission, in the statement by Oyekanmi, said it is carefully studying the judgement and will communicate its decision to the public in due course.

The apex court’s judgement was based on an appeal filed by Senator Esther Nenadi Usman and Senator Darlington Nwokocha, acting National Chairman and Secretary respectively, of the Labo’r Party National Caretaker Committee (NCC).

Sunday Telegraph was unable to confirm Senator Usman’s invitation to the meeting as she was said to have traveled out of Abuja. (New Telegraph)