Labour Party reacts to Peter Obi’s defection to ADC

PREMIUM TIMES reported that Mr Obi, a former 2023 presidential candidate of the Labour Party, defected to the ADC on Wednesday in Enugu.

A faction of the Labour Party (LP), led by its embattled National Chairperson, Julius Abure, claims that the LP made a mistake in selecting Peter Obi as its presidential candidate in the 2023 general election.

Obiora Ifoh, the national spokesperson of the LP faction, stated this in a statement on Wednesday night, shortly after Mr Obi defected from the LP to the African Democratic Congress (ADC).

PREMIUM TIMES reported that Mr Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, defected to the ADC on Wednesday in Enugu, alongside top politicians, including senators and former governors, from other political parties, mainly in the South-east.

The former governor finished third, with 6,101,533 votes, as the presidential candidate of the LP during the 2023 general election, which was won by Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

‘Greatest political mistake’

Reacting, in the statement, Mr Ifoh claimed the LP made the “greatest political mistake” to have fielded Mr Obi as its presidential candidate in the 2023 general election.

“We gave Nigerians a candidate we thought was good for the nation in 2023, but time has since proved that we made the greatest political mistake.

“We plead for forgiveness from Nigerians. We are already working out the best prospect that we hope will bring Nigeria back to its glorious days,” he stated.

Mr Ifoh argued that the LP had been “liberated” by Mr Obi’s defection and wondered why he took a long time to exit the LP, given that the party had in September 2024 “parted ways” with him and “some of his blind supporters in the National Assembly.”

“We have patiently waited for this day. The party is finally liberated by this defection and as party leaders, we count it as a blessing.

“It will be on record that the leadership of the Labour Party had since urged Obi and his disgruntled followers to exit the party if they were unable to work with the leadership of the party,” he said.

“As a matter of fact, the party had suspended many of the lawmakers for anti-party and was clearly going to mete the same treatment on the presidential candidate (Mr Obi) but for the intervention of some well-meaning Nigerians.”

‘Peter Obi, Alex Otti responsible for crisis in Labour Party’

Mr Ifoh also accused Mr Obi and Governor Alex Otti of Abia State of being responsible for the leadership crisis in the LP.

“It was them that sponsored the insurrection against the Julius Abure leadership. We had also expected Governor Otti to follow Obi out of the party.

“We are surprised that even though he (Otti) has been suspended from the party, he is still loitering around. It is still not too late for him to follow his political leader,” he said.

The national spokesperson argued that the political rally in Enugu, where Mr Obi announced his defection on Wednesday, was “largely boycotted by prominent political and traditional institutions in the South-east.”

“All we saw were mere political spent forces who cannot win in their wards should there be an election today,” he claimed, adding that the development was an indication that his political ambition would fail.

“He (Obi) has clearly lost the charm that had endeared him to the people prior 2023,” he added.

Background

Previously, the LP had been battling an intense leadership crisis, which had split the party into two factions.

While Mr Abure leads one of the factions, Messrs Obi and Mr Otti belong to another faction of the LP.

The LP’s factional National Executive Committee had sacked the Abure-led executive in September 2024 and appointed Nenadi Usman, a former minister of finance and ex-Kaduna South senator, to lead a 29-member caretaker committee and facilitate the election of a new party leadership within 90 days.

But weeks later, the Court of Appeal in Abuja recognised Mr Abure as the national chairperson of the LP.

However, the Supreme Court on 4 April 2025, set aside the judgement of the lower court.

A five-member panel of the Supreme Court unanimously held that the Court of Appeal lacked jurisdiction to have affirmed Mr Abure as chairperson of the LP since the substance of the case was about the party’s leadership.

It held that the issue of leadership was an internal affair of a party over which courts lacked jurisdiction.

The court upheld the appeal filed by Mrs Usman against the judgement.

The Supreme Court held that Ms Usman’s appeal was meritorious, and also dismissed the cross-appeal filed by the Mr Abure-led faction of the LP for lacking merit.

But the Abure-led faction of the LP argued the Supreme Court did not sack Mr Abure and other executives of the party.

The factional national spokesperson of the LP, Mr Ifoh, claimed that the Supreme Court’s position was that the matter was purely an internal affair of the party, insisting that the court did not set aside the Court of Appeal judgement of 13 November 2024, which affirmed Mr Abure as the national chairperson of the party.

Since then, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has not publicly confirmed or published Mrs Usman’s name as the national chairperson of the LP as required by law.

As of 1 January 2026, INEC’s official records still recognise Mr Abure as the national chairperson of the LP.

Meanwhile, Mr Obi had repeatedly suggested that the crisis in the LP was orchestrated by the APC-led federal government to weaken the opposition party ahead of the 2027 election.