LABOUR PARTY AND ABURE’S BELLIGERENCE

Prior to the 2023 general election, the Labour Party was moribund. It was just existing as one of the 18 political parties in Nigeria. Granted that the party is a relatively older party in comparison to the other parties except the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The party had produced a governor before who was elected on its platform in the person of Dr. Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State who governed the state for eight years. Following the defection of Mimiko to the PDP after the expiration of his governorship tenure, the Labour Party returned to its moribund status.

However, the entry of Peter Obi into the party energized and revived the party. Peter Obi was not the first presidential candidate of the party in its history. The party had presidential candidates in previous presidential elections prior to 2023.

That Peter Obi contested the presidency on the platform of the Labour Party changed its fortunes. This time around it produced a governor, eight senators, over 35 House of Representatives members and over a hundred House of Assembly members across the states. The party had never recorded such a fortune not even when Mimiko was elected as the first governor of the party.

The party didn’t achieve the results it recorded in the 2023 general election by happenstance or because Julius Abure was the national chairman of the party at the time. It couldn’t have achieved such results as a result of Abure’s magic wand or political sagacity after all his predecessor, Dan Nwanyanwu was far more politically sagacious than Abure can ever be.

The party made such a great impact primarily because Peter Obi was the presidential candidate. Remove Peter Obi from the party, Labour Party may not win a single state House of Assembly seat in the 2027 general election except the current governor of Abia State, Dr Alex Otti seeks reelection on the platform of the party.

What Peter Obi did in 2023 was unprecedented. He made a party which had no single councillorship seat before the election to record over six million votes in the presidential election according to the results allowed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The PDP had about 13 governors and hundreds of federal and states legislators before the election. The All Progressives Congress (APC) had a sitting president,vice president, Senate president, Speaker of the House of Representatives, over 22 governors and hundreds of federal and states legislators before the election. Yet, the combined force of the PDP recorded6,700,000 votes for its presidential candidate. The APC, with all its federal might, was declared the winner with about eight million votes.

The above narrative shows that Peter Obi did what Tinubu or Atiku couldn’t do if either of them was the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the last general election. It implies that Peter Obi is the most single valuable politician in contemporary Nigeria. Even if he leaves the Labour Party today and contest for the presidential election on the platform of another party, he will still transfer the same goodwill to whichever party he defects to.

Against the following background, it’s therefore shocking and bewildering that the acting or erstwhile national chairman of the party, Julius Abure is behaving like a typical Nigerian politician by his latest acts of intransigence. Abure was not supposed to be the acting chairman of the Labour Party during the last general election, but he was allowed to superintendent over the affairs of the party until after the general election. One had expected him to be grateful to the party for granting him such a rare opportunity. Abure cannot deny that his personal fortunes and status have changed after the election prior to what he was before the election. This writer and almost all Nigerians never knew that Abure existed until Peter Obi went to the party. Why then is Abure showing signs of an ingrate? Why is he belligerent? Does he really mean well for the party?

The governor of Abia State, Dr Alex Otti, who’s is the only governor of the party has elected to broker a truce in the simmering crisis in the party. Surprisingly, Abure is questioning his authority to make peace. Just imagine the audacity! Throughout the tenure of Governor Mimiko, Dan Nwanyanwu never had a single public disagreement with him. There was never a time they disagreed publicly. They worked so closely that Mimiko even appointed Nwanyanwu a chairman of a lucrative board in Ondo State. The contrast is what we are seeing in the current attitude of Julius Abure.

Labour Party is the third force in the country today. Julius Abure claimed that he had a convention in a remote village of Nnewi that reelected him. How could such a party which has Peter Obi, Alex Otti and hundreds of serving federal and states legislators conduct its convention in Nnewi? Is the convention of such a party not worthy of live television coverage? Even INEC was not represented at the convention as required by law.What does Julius Abure intend to gain by causing crisis in the Labour Party?

Ifeanyi Maduako, Owerri