The National Delegates Conference of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) ended in crisis as delegates who converged on the International Conference Centre, Abuja, to elect a new president to succeed the outgoing President of the congress, Mr. Abdulwaheed Omar, engaged one another in fisticuffs and used the chairs at the venue as weapons to combat each other.
Trouble started deep into the election on Wednesday night when some discrepancies were observed in ballot papers that were used for the seemingly peaceful elections.
Some of the delegates felt that the ballot papers were deliberately printed to facilitate the rigging of the election in favour of one of the candidates.
The candidates for the prestigious position of President of the NLC are the National President, Medical and Health Workers Union (MHWU), Mr. Ayuba Wabba, who is also the national treasurer of the NLC; the General Secretary of the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE), Mr. Joe Ajaero, who is also a deputy president of the NLC; and the President, Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Mr. Achese Igwe.
According to the aggrieved unionists, some of the ballot papers had the name of Mr. Ayuba Wabba, in three places; some had the name of Mr. Joe Ajaero in two places; others had no name of Ajaero at all while some with the name of Ajaero had no serial number.
The delegates from NUPENG were said to have called attention to the discrepancies in the ballot papers.
The ensuing argument between the delegates loyal to Wabba and Ajaero, threw the venue of the election into pandemonium as the unionists shouted at each other until they started throwing chairs.
Delegates, who claimed to be fighting for fairness in the conduct of the election, scattered the ballot boxes and became uncontrollable.
The Tide learnt that Wabba seemed to have brighter chances of being elected as the next President of the congress until Tuesday evening when Igwe stepped down for Ajaero, and declared support for him which made the election more competitive.
Delegates loyal to Ajaero claim that the organisers of the election might have allowed deliberate errors in the ballot papers to pave the way for the election of Wabba.
The inability to elect a replacement for Omar as president of the NLC has plunged the congress into a constitutional crisis as the tenure of the former president has lapsed without an elected successor.
The leadership of the congress has called a meeting of the National Administrative Council to decide on how to solve the impasse.
With the outcome of the 2015 Delegate Conference, the NLC is heading for a major division involving its major affiliate unions contributing huge sums of money into its purse.