The Nigerian Police Force has granted the detained national chairman of the Labour Party, Julius Abure bail.
Abure was arrested on Wednesday in Benin City, the Edo state capital by operatives of Zone 5 Police headquarters, following a petition forwarded to the zone from the office of the Inspector General of Police in Abuja.
In the petition, the Labour Party national youth leader, Comrade Eragbe Anselm accused Abure of using over 60 armed thugs to attack him when he was leading a party activity in Edo state on December 28, 2023.
In the petition, the party’s suspended national youth leader alleged that he was brutalised and almost killed by the thugs who also stole $75,000 in cash and other properties worth N4.9 million from him and his team.
According to him, he was brutalised for belonging to the camp of the factional acting national chairman of the party, Lamidi Apapa.
The Labour Party Chairman was released from police custody around 2am on Thursday. It was noted that the Edo state chairman, Kelly Ogbaloi, and the state youth leader were still being held and would likely be released later today.
After his release, Abure addressed the party’s supporters, saying, “Let me appreciate all of you for the solidarity, for the support and your commitment. No struggle to liberate the country comes easy.
“In many countries of the world where freedom fighters have fought for the emancipation of the people, freedom fighters suffer injustice, suffer prosecution and it is what is happening to me and my other colleagues since after the general election.”
He continued: “After the general election, they have been trying to instigate crises in the party. They try to bring false accusations against us. They talked about forgery against us at a time when it didn’t work. They came with embezzlement.
“Any person that is aggrieved in the party, they go and instigate them to write a petition against us. The irony is that the police even act on those, and at the end of the day, they discover that those things are false. (Sahara reporters)
