Go Where You Like, Labour Tells Peter Obi
The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, says Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party in 2023 is free to take a walk out of the party that he helped to lift from obscurity.
The Labour Party had finished in third place in a fiercely disputed presidential election in which the President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu claimed popular electoral victory ahead of Atiku Abubakar of the PDP and Peter Obi.
It was LP’s best ever performance since it was registered as a political party by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
The outcome of the three-way race was an indication that Obi who hails from the South East may indeed have a brighter political future waiting for him as one of the leaders of the country’s opposition.
Thus far, neither Atiku nor Tinubu has uttered a word about the events that are currently playing out in the Labour Party.
But the NLC embroiled in a war that it hopes would give it absolute control of the party’s political machine the other day clarified its position.
It said it will not stand against any move by the former governor of Anambra State to quit the party.
“The right of choice”, the NLC insisted, “is available to Mr Obi. If he chooses to leave the party, that is his preference.
“We can’t sit in judgment over him on that. But if he chooses to remain, of course, Peter Obi is an asset any day,”
Apparently, the NLC may have been reacting to speculations which suggest that Obi might be planning to find green pasture on the platform of another party.
David Bwala, a spokesman who worked with Atiku Abubakar, PDP’s presidential candidate, recently took to his X handle to say Obi was already weighing his options and holding talks.
Bwala suggested Obi may have opened up a conversation with Rabiu Kwankwaso, one-time Governor of Kano State who had a shot at the presidency on the platform of the NNPP.
Others speculate Obi may team up in 2027 with El-Rufai, the immediate past governor of Kaduna State who is described by agents of state as a security risk.
Obi may have a lot of explaining, especially when it comes to what is political future would be like.
However, the labour movement which is not hiding its intention to emerge as a powerful player within Nigeria’s emerging political equation said its problem is not with Obi.
It is with Julius Abure whose occupation of the chairmanship seat after a convention of the party in Nnewi, Anambra State, is being deemed illegal.
“Our position on this matter is clear and has not changed”, the NLC stressed, “Abure remains unknown to us. It is not a question of removal. As far as we know, he does not exist.”
Will the Labour Party survive without Obi and the Obidient movement?
Many still ascribe the meteoric rise of the Labour Party to the efforts of Peter Obi and the ‘Obidients’, a group populated by young and articulate Nigerians who worked round the clock to enthrone Obi as the President of Nigeria.
Those who fear that LP may finally go under if Obi leaves its ranks are speaking out on social media.
Initially, there were strong suspicions in some quarters that Obi, a shrewd trader and politician, might be behind attempts by the NLC which speaks for the Nigerian working class to throw Abure out of the driving seat.
Obi, it would be recalled, did not support the way Julius Abure was brought back as the National Chairman of LP.
The former presidential candidate who spoke last Friday still remains very bitter about the decision taken to ignore his call for wider consultations
Somehow, the seeming nonchalant posture of the NLC concerning his place in the party is sending conflicting signals.