The Director-General of the Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Council, Akin Osuntokun during an interview on Arise TV said that the Labour Party was a liability to Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the party during the 2023 Nigerian Presidential Election. Mr. Osuntokun was reacting to the declaration by Julius Abure, the embattled chairman of the Labour Party, that there will be no automatic presidential ticket for any member of the party during the 2027 elections. Osuntokun described Abure’s admission that he had unilaterally decided to “allocate” the party’s presidential ticket in an elections more than two years away as perverse. He contrasted Obi’s “idealism” to the “real politic” of the Labour Party, saying that Abure and the Labour Party were liabilities rather than assets to Peter Obi during the 2023 Nigerian presidential elections. According to Osuntokun, the 2023 elections was an opportunity for the Labour to demand money for rallies and sundry purposes. Osuntokun said that Peter Obi would have been better off running as an independent candidate.
Burying Abure: Peter Obi and Alex Otti Faction Writes INEC to Recognise Stakeholder Committee Meeting
It emerged today that on September 6, 2024, Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s (LP) presidential candidate in the last general election, and Alex Otti, Governor of Abia State, wrote to Professor Mahmood Yakubu, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The letter informed INEC of the establishment of a 29-member caretaker committee tasked with organizing the party’s congresses and national convention within 180 days. This step follows the recent leadership crisis within the LP.
The letter highlighted that INEC had derecognized the Abure-led National Working Committee (NWC) effective June 2024 due to non-compliance with a prior settlement brokered on June 27, 2022. This settlement was based on a court judgment by Justice Gabriel Kolawole from March 2018, which mandated that a comprehensive national convention should be held within one year, with prior congresses at lower levels.
Obi and Otti noted that the Abure-led NWC had organized a convention in Nnewi in March 2024 without conducting the necessary ward, local government, and state congresses, leading to a leadership vacuum and a depleted National Executive Committee. To address this, a meeting was convened in Umuahia on September 4, 2024, by statutory party executives and other key stakeholders.
The letter also announced the appointment of Senator Nenadi Usman as Chairman and Senator Darlington Nwokocha as Secretary of the caretaker committee. Other members include representatives from the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Trade Union Congress (TUC), former governorship candidates, and members of state Houses of Assembly. This committee is expected to organize the congresses and national convention to fill the leadership vacuum and stabilize the party.
Democracy with Opposition: Will Labour Fill the Void ?
The Labour Party was a hitherto completely unknown political party that upended Nigeria’s political duopoly, coming a close 3rd in the 2023 Nigerian Presidential Election. This achievement was due to the wild popularity of its candidate, Peter Obi who was overwhelmingly the candidate of “urban Nigeria” (young people, professionals, activists, traditional and digital media commentariat).
The outstanding performance of the Labour Party created (realistic) expectations that it would become the official opposition party. But the Labour Party broke into two factions immediately after the elections-the Peter Obi faction and the National Executive Committee under Julius Abure. The Abure faction, the minority, seemed determined to “milk” the opportunities for fundraising that Peter Obi’s popularity have brought to their party. Early September, the Peter Obi faction met to elect a caretake committee that will conduct elections for a new NEC in 90 days, effectively ending the formal control of the Abure faction of the Labour Party.
Nigerian politics has virtually lacked an opposition party since the last election. The regrouping of the Labour Party under the effective control of Peter Obi could lead to its emergence as an effective opposition party- this is the expectation of many Nigerians, especially Peter Obi’s supporters (aka the “Obidient movement”).
It is not clear what the impact on governance and economic policy would be. Peter Obi could have used his popularity to shape government economic policy making and Nigerians’ reaction to the government’s economic reforms despite the factional crisis in the Labour Party. While remaining very popular and enjoying media coverage and public attention, Obi has been an ineffective opposition political leader, lacking any impact on the ruling APC’s policy agenda.
Obi’s preferences on key economic issues, in effect the policy choices that an Obi government would make, remain largely unknown to Nigerians. The Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) is towing a cynical populist line on key economic policy issues such as the fuel subsidy, attacking government policies without proposing viable alternatives. The PDP has however been completely ineffective in exploiting the missteps (such as the inept attempt to eradicate the fuel subsidy) of the ruling All People’s Congress (APC) government of President Ahmed Tinubu.
Labour Party, Peter Obi and the Politics of 2027
Politics in Nigeria is about politics. Not economic policy. A unified, resurgent Labour Party is unlikely to compete for the support of Nigerians by investing in generating and demonstrating better ideas to relieve their economic pains. Rather, the impact of a unified, resurgent Labour Party will be on the politics of 2027.
Will the Labour Party go into an alliance with the PDP? This is likely to result in certain defeat for President Ahmed Tinubu. Will the possibility of a fatal Labour/PDP alliance further constrain the willingness of President Tinubu to take tough economic policy decisions?
.
