The factional groups in the Labour Party (LP) have resumed their war of words, barely 24 hours after the party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi, joined the coalition of politicians to adopt the African Democratic Congress (ADC) as a platform to contest against President Bola Tinubu in 2027.
While the National Caretaker Committee (NCC) of the party, led by former Minister of Finance, Senator Nenadi Usman, supported Obi’s decision to join the ADC, the National Working Committee (NWC), under the leadership of the National Chairman, Mr Julius Abure, gave Obi a 48-hour ultimatum to resign from the LP.
Each of the camps, keeping with their recent trends, insisted they remained the authentic leadership of the party.
The Abure group, which was the first to react to Obi’s decision on Thursday, said by joining the coalition, Obi had lost his membership of the LP and must resign within 48 hours.
The camp described the coalition as a conglomeration of “power mongers whose only interest was self and not the people.”
It warned Nigerians that the “often mouthed ‘new Nigeria is POssible’ is a ruse and cannot be achieved with the assemblage of old, recycled, desperate and frustrated politicians in the coalition.”
The National Publicity Secretary, Mr Obiora Ifoh, in a statement, alleged that “all those who mismanaged Nigeria over the years are the ones that gathered themselves in the coalition while noting that desperate politicians can’t birth new Nigeria.”
The camp added, “We are aware of several nocturnal meetings between Peter Obi and some of our members, lobbying them to join him in his new party. We’re also aware that a number of them has refused to defect with him.
“Labour Party has consistently said it is not part of the coalition and therefore, any of our members who is part of the coalition is given within 48 hours to formally resign his membership of the party.
“Labour Party is not available for people with dual agenda, people with deceptive persona. The party will not avail itself to individuals who have one leg in one Party and another leg elsewhere. People, that in the morning, they will claim to be in the Labour Party, and in the evening, they are in coalition.”
However, in response, the Usman-led NCC dismissed the Abure group, saying that following the April 4 Supreme Court judgment, which ended his tenure, Abure no longer controlled any authority in the LP to decide the fate of Obi.
It said Obi remained part of the LP while also participating in the ADC’s coalition.
The Senior Special Adviser (media) to the NCC’s Chairman, Ken Eluma Asogwa, in a statement on Thursday, urged Nigerians and party supporters to ignore the Abure camp.
Disputing the 48-hour ultimatum, the NCC leader’s aide wrote: “The attention of the Labour Party has been drawn to misleading reports and commentaries suggesting that His Excellency, Mr. Peter Obi, has been issued a 48-hour ultimatum to resign from the party following his participation in the recent coalition talks and the unveiling of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in Abuja.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the leadership of the Labour Party, on May 26, 2025, publicly declared its full support for Mr. Obi’s involvement in the coalition efforts aimed at creating a robust political alternative to rescue Nigeria from the disastrous misrule of the APC. That position has not changed.
“We wish to reaffirm that Mr. Peter Obi’s participation in the coalition activities, including the ADC unveiling, was done with the full knowledge, approval, and support of the Labour Party leadership.”
The development came as Obi himself took to his X handle to explain the circumstances under which he participated in the unveiling of the ADC.
The post, which read in part, stated that: “This decision was not made lightly. It comes from deep reflection on where we are as a country and what must be done to move forward.
“No one group can change Nigeria alone. To dismantle the structures that keep our people in poverty and insecurity, we must build bridges, not walls even when those bridges are uneasy.”
Meanwhile, the Presidential candidate of the ADC, in the 2023 election, Dumebi Kachikwu, has rejected the appointment of ex-Senate President David Mark as the national chairman and Rauf Aregbesola as the National Secretary of the party, calling on the independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to name the authentic executives of the party.
Speaking during an interactive session with journalists on Thursday in Abuja, Kachikwu alleged that Mark was imposed by a faction of the party.
According to him, the Raph Nwosu-led executive of the ADC appointed Mark and former Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, as interim national chairman and secretary, respectively.
The development followed the adoption of the ADC as the platform of the opposition coalition.
Kachikwu said it is a disservice to Nigerians for Atiku, Aregbesola and Mark to front a coalition. INEC should come out and name the party’s original Executives”
He said: “It is a disservice to ordinary Nigerians and party members to refer to David Mark as the ADC party chairman. He is not. He cannot be.
“The people coming through the back doors cannot take over our party,” he stated.
He insisted that if there will be coalition in the party, then the South must produce the presidential candidate through the primary against Atiku’s presidential ambitions.
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