The Director General of the Labour Party presidential campaign council, Akin Osuntokun has claimed the Labour Party did not add anything to his principal, Peter Obi.
Osuntokun made the comments while speaking about the crisis in the party with Reuben Abati on City talks. He said Peter Obi would have run as an independent candidate if the constitution allows it. He also faulted the mentality of some of the leaders of the party.
He said, “what is going on now is one of the idiosyncrasies of Nigerian politics. Without trying to put the Labour Party down, Obi would have run as independent candidate if that was in the constitution. In essence, Labour Party added nothing to him and if you take him out of Labour Party today, I don’t think anybody would talk about Labour party again.
The party was being used as a dumping ground and things like that, positioning itself for people who could not win primaries at their parties and they are looking for somewhere to use. It was there as a special purpose vehicle for politicians on the run. So the party was not really used to the kind of the candidacy of Obi.”
“Obi’s entrance into the party together with his followership was going to transform potentially the party into an authentic political party, into what it should be.
But what was on ground before was there. The mentality of those who were there before either at the state level or national level are such that they are not really public and utility oriented, I’m sorry to say.
So it’s a crisis of the Labour Party not Obi. That is the contradiction that is playing out.
As I said, if he runs as an independent candidate he will gather as much followership and victory as he did under Labour Party.”
