One of the aspirants jostling for the Labour Party (LP) ticket for the September 21, 2024 governorship election in Edo State, Dr Azemhe Azena, has resigned from the party.
It was gathered that the resignation letter was addressed to the Ward 10 chairman of the party in Okpekpe, Etsako-East Local Government Area.
Azena was one of the 18 governorship aspirants who wrote to the leadership of the party last week to consider reducing the cost of the party’s Expression of Interest and Nomination forms from N30 million to not more that N5 million.
In his resignation letter dated January 27, 2024, Azena attributed his decision to dump the party to ill-treatment allegedly meted on him and his supporters by the chairman of the party in Akoko-Edo Local Government Area, Michael Onaivi, during his tour of the local government.
“My decision to leave the party I have so much laboured for is based on the ill-treatment I got when I embarked on a political tour of all the local government areas in Edo North, where I came from, between 27 and 30 of December 2023,” Azena said.
“It was to my utmost surprise that the leadership of the Labour Party in Akoko-Edo, led by the Local Government Area chairman, Mr. Michael Onaivi, resisted and prevented my team and I from entering into the Local Government for the said visit.”
The former governorship aspirant, who said he reported the incident to Chris Ighodalo, Leader of Edo North Senatorial District of the party, noted that several entreaties to the chairman by the senatorial leader to allow his team to visit the local government were all to no avail.
“I wrote a protest letter to the senatorial leadership, copying the state leadership and have personally met with the senatorial leader over the issue; up until today, nothing has been said or done about it.
“That one man can prevent an aspirant and his team from entering any part of a senatorial zone to which the aspirant himself hails from speaks of lawlessness and wanton impunity that should not be accepted by anybody in a party that preaches justice and equality,” he said.
Azena said the alleged ill-treatment was a slap on the sensitivity of the members of the party in Etsako, Edo-North and the entire party members in Edo State.
He, however, thanked the leadership of the party in the state for the opportunity to serve as an active member in the past.
