Julius Abure

Julius Abure, the National Chairman of the Labour Party (LP), has accused the suspended treasurer of the party, Oluchi Opara, of attempting to damage his reputation with the corruption allegations levelled against him.

It was earlier reported that Opara had asked Abure to give an account of the donations received from Nigerians in the diaspora during the campaign tour of the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, in the United States.

Opara claimed that Abure used the party’s name to raise funds during the United States campaign tour and used proxy accounts to withdraw money from the party.

The suspended treasurer also alleged that for the past eleven months, Abure had been the only one withdrawing the money from the partý’s account.

Reacting to the claims in an interview with Punch, Abure stated that he never used the party’s name to raise campaign funds in the United States.

The embattled LP chairman stated that Opara was working with his detractors and was merely out to tarnish his image.

He said, “We made changes to the account. That was how we were able to run the party from January 2021 to March 2021 when we had the NEC meeting in Benin, where I emerged as the national chairman of the party. All the money withdrawn between January and March 2021 was co-signed with the acting national chairman, Maria Lebeke.

“I was the national secretary at the time and there was no way I could have withdrawn from the account or any person could have withdrawn money without the co-signatory. We brought in the new acting chairman, who co-signed all the cheques, and Opara equally co-signed the cheques. So, changes of signatories were made and we needed to run the party, and a lot of activities of the party at that time were co-signed by Maria Lebeke, and it is obvious.”