LP crisis: Peter Obi, Obidients dump Abure, as search for new chairman begins

The crisis within the Labour Party (LP) intensified last week as members of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) staged protests, picketing the party’s national secretariat and several state offices.

There are also indications that the party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, and his supporters, known as Obidients, have reportedly withdrawn their support from the party’s National Chairman, Julius Abure, leaving him to face his challenges alone.

It was disclosed that Comrade Isaac Balami, a former Deputy National Campaign Manager for the Peter Obi/Datti Presidential Campaign from the Northern region, is being considered as a potential replacement for Abure.

According to Dailypost, some party leaderships and chieftains have had a meeting and suggested Belami as the next National Chairman of the party.

When contacted, Balami said that he was “under pressure to run for the chairmanship of the party”, but that there are issues on ground still stopping his declaration.

According to him, he doesn’t even know whether the convention will be held as scheduled as “there are forces fighting against the unity and progress of the party”.

“But then, I can’t refuse or turn down a request coming directly from the youth constituency of the party.

“You know they were instrumental to the change in the political narrative and advancement of the Labour Party in the last election, so we can’t joke with their position.

“I truly appreciate their commitment to the success of our party and I won’t take their call for granted.

”In a couple of hours, we shall make our final decision on this matter.”

The former All Progressives Congress, APC, chieftain had prior to the 2023 general elections, dumped his party for the LP, saying he believed in the ideology of the party and its candidate, Mr Peter Obi.

In discussing the controversy surrounding the convention, Dr. Yunusa Salisu Tanko, Chief Spokesperson for the Labour Party’s Presidential Campaign Council for the 2023 election,  said that Abure failed to engage the party’s stakeholders in the proposed convention.

He said, “all we want is for us to build a political party we all will be proud of. A part that will represent the interest of everybody.

“We have all that it takes to build the structure of the party. That is the best thing that can happen to us as a party.

“We don’t want a closed convention like the Chairman is trying to have. Because it is likely going to be a closed convention instead of an open convention and that is not good for us.

“Many people did not even know that there was going to be a convention. I was not aware of the convention too. I saw it in the newspaper just like any other person.

“This is what NLC is also saying. Nobody is against any particular person but for us to have a convention that all of us will be proud of. Peter Obi has also said that the convention should be open for everybody.”

Asked to clarify the viral report purporting Peter Obi’s decision to dump the Labour Party ahead of the 2027 presidential elections, Tanko simply said, “It is not true. As far as I am concerned, there is nothing like that”.