Stop advising Peter Obi to leave LP, party officer cautions supporters

The Deputy National Chairman of the Labour Party (LP), Ayo Olorunfemi, has cautioned those calling on the party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, to defect to another political party to actualise his presidential ambition.

He said those urging Mr Obi to leave the Labour Party in the belief that he could win the next presidential election in 2027 on the platform of another party were delusional.

“Well, I will just use the word delusional. Those that are pressing for such are delusional. Some people can rate themselves. The true ‘Obidients’ out there will not, and I repeat, they will not advise Peter Obi to leave the party,” Mr Olorunfemi said when he appeared on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Wednesday.

LP crisis

Many members of Mr Obi’s supporters’ group, popularly called the ‘Obidients’, have recently called on him to leave the LP amid a leadership crisis rocking the party.

The crisis has worsened due to the controversies surrounding the party’s March National Convention in Anambra State, which INEC disowned.

Amid the crisis, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), which formed the party in 2002, has accused the National Chairman, Julius Abure, of running the party like his personal property and urged him to step down.

In a recent interview on Symfoni TV, actor-turned-politician Kenneth Okonkwo, a key figure of Mr Obi’s 2023 campaign and still his fervent supporter, criticised the party over the lingering crisis.

Mr Okonkwo joined the LP on 24 August 2022, one month after resigning from the All Progressives Congress (APC) over the party’s Muslim-Muslim ticket issue.

‘LP remains Obi’s best chances to win 2027 election’

However, Mr Olorunfemi insisted on Wednesday that the party was not in a crisis.

He said the party was only going through challenges he hoped would be resolved within the next few weeks.

According to him, the party remains Mr Obi’s best chance to win the 2027 presidential election.

He said the true ‘Obidients’, including students’ unions, the Nigerian youths, the hardworking people of Nigeria, the people who are tired of what is going on in Nigeria, and people who are tired of hunger,” still want Mr Obi to remain in the Labour party.

“Which political party should he go back to? To go back to PDP, or to APC or to where?” Mr Olorunfemi queried. “This is a political party that is based on ideology. We are social democrats here. The people who put this political party together are social democrats, and that is entrenched in the constitution. The only place for Peter Obi to be able to win in 2027 is the Labour Party, and we are already preparing for that.”

Mr Olorunfemi expressed hope that Mr Obi would not leave the Labour Party, maintaining that the former presidential candidate has his final destination in the party.

Mr Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, whose foray into politics started around 2007, had been a member of two political parties before joining the Labour Party before the 2023 elections.

In 2014, he defected from the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), on whose platform he served as governor of Anambra State for two terms between 2007 and 2014.

He emerged as the running mate of the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, in the 2019 elections. They came second in the election, losing to the then-incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari.

Mr Obi left the PDP for the LP preparatory to the 2023 general elections.

He ran as the LP’s candidate in the presidential election.

Mr Obi won in Nigeria’s federal capital, Abuja, and 11 out of Nigeria’s 36 states, polling 6,101,533 votes.

However, he came third behind President Bola Tinubu, the APC candidate, who emerged the winner of the election with a total score of 8,794,726 votes, and Atiku, the PDP candidate, who came second after polling a total of 6,984,520 votes.