Abure misled Obi, cost LP victory in 2023, party alleges

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By John Alechenu, Abuja

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The Labour Party (LP) has alleged that internal sabotage and poor organisational planning under the leadership of Julius Abure contributed to its defeat in the 2023 presidential election.

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Speaking on Friday in Abuja, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Ken Asogwa, claimed that the former leadership misled the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, into believing the party had a nationwide structure capable of protecting its votes.

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According to Asogwa, the leadership at the time claimed the Labour Party had agents in all 186,449 polling units across the country, but the reality on election day was different.

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“In 2023, we lost the election because we did not have a structure. That is the truth. Even when we claimed to have won, we went to court, litigated up to the Supreme Court, and the court told us that we did not win because we were unable to validate the claim,” he said.

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“We went back to the drawing board and understood why we lost. The then leadership of our party deceived our presidential candidate into believing that we had party agents spread across 186,449 polling units in Nigeria.

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“On the day of reckoning, February 25, 2023, we realised that we did not have up to 30 per cent of polling agents across the country. At the end of the day, we had no people to police our votes.”

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Asogwa also alleged that offers by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), which are institutional members of the party, to provide polling agents were rejected by the former leadership.

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He said the Labour Party’s greatest strength lies in its institutional membership.

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“The Labour Party is unique. We have the NLC and the TUC as institutional members. There is no polling unit where you will not find serving or retired civil servants or trade union members. Members of these two bodies are our members, but our former presidential candidate was deceived into thinking they did not matter,” he said.

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Asogwa said the current leadership, led by Abia State Governor Alex Otti and National Chairman Senator Nenadi Usman, has repositioned the party by leveraging its institutional membership to strengthen its grassroots structure ahead of the 2027 general elections.

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Reacting to the allegations, Abure dismissed the claims, accusing the Nenadi Usman-led faction of attempting to rewrite the party’s history.

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Speaking through former Labour Party National Publicity Secretary, Obiora Ifoh, Abure said the allegations were an attempt by “a group of usurpers” to gain legitimacy.

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“It is disheartening that non-party members who now claim to be leaders have resorted to rewriting history in a desperate bid for validation,” he said.

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He argued that the Labour Party achieved its best electoral performance under his leadership.

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“How can anyone making such wild allegations continue to argue with facts? It remains an undisputed fact that it was under Barrister Julius Abure’s leadership that the Labour Party produced a governor, eight senators, 46 members of the House of Representatives and over 40 members of state Houses of Assembly in the 2023 general election,” he said.

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Abure added that he had refrained from commenting extensively on the dispute because the matter remains before the Supreme Court.

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