Okupe: LP Special Vehicle for 2023 Presidential Poll, Obi Not a Labour Person

•Chides PDP for fielding Atiku in 2023

Chuks Okocha in Abuja

A former Director General of the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Orgainsirion, Doyin Okupe, yesterday, maintained that Mr. Peter Obi only used the Labour Party for his presidential election as Obi was not a Labour-oriented person.

He said for  Obi, the Labour Party was just a special purpose vehicle (SPV) for the presidential election, stating that he and Obi did not subscribe to the ideology of the Labour party 

The former presidential aide to Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, however, chided the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for being unreasonable by fielding former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar as its presidential candidate at a time Nigerians wanted power shift to south.

Okupe, who spoke on Arise Television, said he and Peter Obi, did not necessarily subscribe to the ideologies of the Labour Party.

In January, Okupe resigned his membership of LP, citing ideological differences, saying his membership of the party ended the moment Obi lost the election.

“The LP for us — for Peter Obi and I — and those in the leadership of the movement, was a special purpose vehicle (SPV).

“I have never been a labour person. I have never operated on the left before but we needed a platform and this was the only platform readily available to us.

“We thought that if we won the election… there are no fast and hard rules about ideologies. You can always find a shade between the left and the right. You can always move to the centre.

“We were hoping and praying that if we won we would find a way to come to some consensus with the labour.

“Peter Obi is not a labour person. He is not a leftist person. He is a trader. He is a businessman just like me. I am a liberal democrat. I believe in liberal democracy, I believe in free enterprise.

“I am not a social worker. As far as I’m concerned, my membership of labour expired the moment we lost that election,” he stated.

Okupe, who chided the PDP for fielding a northerner for the 2023 presidential election, described it as an unreasonable thing to do.

He explained that it was unreasonable thing to do when Nigerians were clamouring for the presidency to go to the Southern part of the country.