By Okey Aguwa
Mr. Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 general election, says he will dump the party if he cannot mediate and find solutions to the leadership crisis that has engulfed the party.
Obi said this on Saturday during an engagement with his supporters on his Verified X space (former Twitter), hosted by Parallel Facts.
This magazine reports that Obi is seriously strategising for the 2027 general election and as such would want to clear every obstacle on his way ahead of the poll.
Obi explained that his primary focus, which attracted members of the Obidient Movement to him was all about making Nigeria work for all citizens and with that, he would not be distracted.
According to him, the contrived crisis in the Labour Party was part of the strategy to distract him which neither he nor his supporters will succumb to.
“Our engagement is about Nigeria, they are trying to change our focus. What we want to do is not about Labour Party; it is about what the Obidients want to do about Nigeria.
“We are thinking about water, we are thinking about power, we are thinking about employment, thinking about security. That should be our focus.
“The other matter we will deal with. We were somewhere, we didn’t start with Labour.
“I’m a Christian. Jesus said, When you go into a city, try to change them, live with them, fast with them. in the end, you can’t, come out and even wash the sand that is on your shoes.
“He didn’t say go there and die with them. I tell you, I’m making spirited efforts to change them (LP), but I’m not going to die with them.
“That will not stop what we set out to do. We will try to change them (LP), if we can’t, we will leave them; we will not die with them.”
It would be recalled that an open letter signed by the Chairman and Secretary of the Nigeria Labour Congress Political Commission, Titus Amba and Chris Uyot respectively, Julius Abure, the Labour Party Chairman and the NWC of the party were accused of proposing a secret national convention.
According to the NLC letter, the convention was scheduled to hold in Umuahia, the Abia State capital on March 27 to be used as a platform to re-elect the embattled chairman to continue running the LP as ‘sole administrator’.
Describing the planned convention as illegal, the political wing of the NLC called for Abure’s resignation as party chairman and the immediate constitution of a caretaker transition committee to organise a legitimate and all-inclusive national convention for the party.
This had since created tension and “bad blood” in the party, while stakeholders now depend on the Judiciary for its interpretation of who should control the party’s leadership.