Labouring In Vain -By Khaleb Ogbonna

“And this confirms the saying, ‘One sows the seed and another reaps the harvest.’ I have sent you out to harvest a field that you haven’t planted, where many others have laboured long and hard before you. And now you are privileged to profit from their labours and reap the harvest.”

John 4:37-38 (The Passion Translation)

Catching the best of him as he steps out of his SUV, greeted by a policeman standing by the wayside into the court, whom he stretches his hand to casually shake, the embattled factional chairman of Nigeria’s Labour Party, Alhaji Lamidi Apapa, is stepping into the Court of Appeal in Abuja to attend the court sitting of the Appeal Court’s Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, where the party and its presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi, are seeking to challenge the process that led to the declaration of the president-elect, Mr Bola Ahmed Tinubu, by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Mr Apapa has caught a controversial figure, a character not alien to labour leaders, chief of whom is Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole, the pint-sized ex-president of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), who later went on to run for gubernatorial elections and subsequently win under the platform of the Labour Party. Mr Oshiomhole never failed to set the nation’s media space ablaze with his incessant battles with the then President Olusegun Obasanjo, whom – to date – he has never ceased to attack when opportune.

Several media chats have Apapa buttressing his senior citizenship of the Labour Party, which he feels his present ‘standing up to the occasion’ is a result of owning a platform that has been invaded by people who didn’t know how the party has managed to remain afloat in the face of wars against the popular parties that held 98% of the country’s elected positions for the better part of the early millennium.

However, unlike Oshiomhole, who through activism, under the platform of the NLC, got to be governor of Edo state, gaining the impression of being a man of the masses, the 72-year-old Lamidi Apapa is perceived by supporters of the Labour Party’s candidate to be a cog in the wheel, a spoiler who is more interested in betraying the party, for which he was before now its Deputy National Chairman (South).

The big question is not Apapa’s claim to the leadership of the Labour Party; rather, it is if there is genuineness in his claims. However, a little look into his history shows that Mr Apapa has been in the party for a better part of 20 years and has run for the gubernatorial election in Oyo state under the umbrella of the party. He was also a one-time chairman of the party in the state, and in an adjunct position, he headed the state’s chapter of the Natural Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG). This lays to rest the argument of where he has been and the stake he claims to have.

Yet, like the biblical passage used as the quote of this article, Mr. Apapa’s accusers seem to miss out on the context in which he has conducted himself. Reminded of the harsh realities of history as observed in places like the United States of America, where Europeans have taken over the land from natives and given it an identity without recourse and respect to the owners of the land, Apapa has constantly reminded those who cared to listen that the Labour Party did not originate in 2023 but has a rich history and can lay claim to having produced two governors in Olusegun Mimiko and Adams Oshiomhole. Apapa’s grouse stems from the belligerence of the new entrants who have taken over and seek to relegate active players like him to the background.

The argument that Apapa’s grouse may have been monetized may be academic, as it is also impossible as well that he may be on an ego trip. Knowing from experience that Nigerian politicians also decide to invest in violence – apologies to Nigerian Twitter users – there seems to be a plausible reason that Apapa is now the new bride to court, with the possibility of the Nigerian Judiciary known for its wavering verdict based on a technicality. Apapa may be a rising stock to buy and hold for the possible future.

However, beyond the possibility of an Apapa Chairman is the certainty of a Labour Party consolidation owing to an impressive 2023 outing. With a governor and several legislative members at the federal and state legislature, a viral and unled vicious mob of angry young Nigerians who are the biggest faction within the party, the Labour Party is unarguably Nigeria’s biggest opposition party, dislodging the docile PDP in vigour, affront, and effrontery.

It is undeniable that Lamidi Apapa’s actions are distracting and destroying the Labour Party, what is not befitting is to completely treat his actions as inconsequential. This is the first stress test of the foundation upon which the party will thrive or be trod. Apapa may not be popular, but his actions are as popular as Nigerian politics, as seen more recently in the G-5 group within the PDP that hampered the chances of the presidential candidate of its party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.

What is common knowledge is that it is worthy to reward every labourer for his labour, yet what is essential is to ask the right questions about the labours of Lamidi Apapa, just like in an interview with Arise TV where he was asked by the Anchor Rufai Oseni about his contribution towards the success of the Labour Party in his state, of which there was a battle to make coherence out of his response.

What has been the subject of discussion among the young supporters of Labour Party is that Apapa’s doggedness does not match the poise, elegance, glitz, and glamour of an average Nigerian politician who has had his go at affluence, yet the Labour Party remains a party with a reputation for leading massive industrial actions against governments, as many have said was the case of Apapa as NLC leader against the then governor of Oyo State, Christopher Adebayo Alao-Akala.

As it is, the Labour Party seems to have entered its state of rest after labouring in the political trenches. Yet, were it not that the harvest aimed for by politicians in Nigeria is economic larceny, institutional cronyism, mindless prebendalism, and grand looting of the nation’s treasury, these struggles should have come to an end in the bigger scheme of things. Now that the Labour Party has the attention of Nigerians, the bigger picture is to provide Nigeria with the finest of opposition.

However, as the motto of the Nigerian Union of Pensioners goes, “Rest is sweet after labour,” Alhaji Lamidi Apapa deserves a good rest after labour. That rest should be both a priority to the leadership of the party and himself, being over 70 years of age. It should be wisdom, knowing when to fight and when to retire from political militancy.

Khaleb Ogbonna is a media executive and writes from khalebpowers@gmail.com