In a scathing critique of the Labour Party’s past leadership, Comrade Abdulwaheed Omar, Chairman of the Labour Party National Transition Committee (LP-NTC), has attributed the party’s losses in the 2023 elections to internal factors, including the prioritization of self-enrichment over polling agents’ empowerment and diligent tribunal documentation.
According to Omar, the party’s image has been tarnished by the transactional leadership of graft and crime, leading to a loss of hope among millions of Nigerians who see the Labour Party as no different from the APC and PDP.
However, Omar expresses optimism that the forthcoming historic roundtable in Umuahia, Abia State, on September 4, 2024, will provide a turning point for the party. The meeting, superintended by Mr. Peter Obi and His Excellency Dr. Alex Otti, is expected to yield impeccable and permanent solutions to the party’s challenges.
Omar praises Obi and Otti for their commitment to good governance, rule of law, and true democracy, and notes that their leadership has conquered the imagination of millions of Nigerians and the international community.
The LP-NTC chairman calls on all true Labour Party members and Nigerians to join hands with the committee and the anticipated positive outcome of the Umuahia roundtable to expand the party’s goodwill and excellent reputation.
The mission, according to Omar, can be realized through the commitment of stakeholders to the conduct of constitutionally compliant state congresses culminating in an all-inclusive national convention.
As Nigerians await the decisions of the Umuahia roundtable, the LP-NTC remains committed to promoting and safeguarding the achievements of Obi and Otti, and to realizing the party’s goal of providing leadership paragons for voters’ value in the run-up to 2027.
Find the full text of the press release below:
LABOUR PARTY: UMUAHIA DECISION 2024
Labour Party lost the Presidency and several states in 2023 not only because of external factors but also because the party’s Abure led national executives at the time prioritized sinking working funds for self-enrichment over polling agents empowerment and diligence in tribunal documentations.
Let’s Not Lose 2027 Again by Wrong Decisions
1. Presently, millions of Nigerians who see the Labour Party through the lense of the Julius Abure led transactional leadership of graft and crime have lost hope in our party, stating that it is not different from APC and PDP.
2. Additionally and more critically, they wrongly use the Abure barometer to judge our top elected officers and apex leaders. Across the country, they speak stridently to our faces and in social media spaces that if the Labour Party’s highest leaders could not, since 2022 going to the third year, fix only one issue among many, the Abure malaise, how could they be trusted with federal power to fix in four or even eight years Nigeria’s pandemic, endemic and epidemic cancer of corruption ravaging the country?
3. Here is the good news! Our leaders, Mr. Peter Obi and His Excellency Dr. Alex Otti, are about to prove these assumptions wrong. As Obi promised Nigerians in his meeting with the Labour Party National Transition Committee (NTC) on July 25 and July 30 this year at the end of two separate meetings, the two foremost leaders of our party, elected officers and stakeholders are expected to come out of a historic roundtable, which shall hold in Umuahia, the capital of Abia State, on September 4, 2024, with what we believe will be impeccable and permanent solutions.
4. These are decisions which NTC, Labour Party members nationwide and Nigerians in general are optimistic will reflect their well-known advocacy for good governance, rule of law and true democracy through commitment to the principles of integrity, justice and corruption-free leadership.
5. The NTC, all genuine well-meaning Labour Party members home and abroad understand that the Abure era is a dark page which is irreconcilably opposed to the ideals which Peter Obi and Alex Otti stand for. This is also why we are confident that the forthcoming Peter Obi-Alex Otti superintended stakeholders meeting shall provide a Magna Carta of progress which will bring lasting healing and restoration of the hope and faith of Obidient flocks who departed to the two Sodom and Gomorrah political parties of Nigeria before now because of the sad protracted leadership crises and misnomer which Julius Abure and his co-conspirators emblemize. A new charter of progress that will bring our precious flock back home to the green, incomparable ideological pasture of the Labour Party’s founding fathers.
6. NTC notes with pride that in the history of Nigeria, no former leader, least of all an accomplished ex-governor and industrialist, ever bestirred themselves and rose above the comfort zones of their superlative personal wellbeing to return to the public space with such courage of conviction and precision of ideology to confront head-on Nigeria’s dangerous behemoths of corruption in the fearless, selfless, life-risking manner as Peter Obi has done and continues to inspire our country’s poverty-devastated population to do. In the process, Obi has conquered the imagination of millions of Nigerians, entire Africa’s social-political audience and the international community. As one platform patriot recently wrote and can be seen in the accompanying video of one of his messages below, “Peter Obi is not only a threat to Nigeria’s looters but to their accomplices overseas in Europe and America. The imperialist powers know that he would change the narrative. Nobody would have bought a $150 million dollar aircraft under Peter Obi. Nobody would have spent #1billion naira to buy a Presidential car under Peter Obi. Nobody would go for medical treatment overseas under Peter Obi…”
7. Similarly, no Governor in the history of Nigeria, within the pendulum of less than two years, has proven and achieved from a hitherto false narrative of low state revenue such a dramatic panorama of infrastructure revolution, all without borrowing, as Governor Alex Otti has achieved in Abia State. NTC is proud to observe that Otti achieved this epic feat for Abia state in just thirteen months after twenty-four years of ruthless corruption and graft under PDP’s state capture since 1999.
8. Without the smallest iota of self-interest whatsoever, it is for the above superlative records of our leaders, His Excellency Peter Obi and His Excellency Alex Otti, that the Labour Party NTC stepped into the ring to save, promote and safeguard the achievements of these two icons of our time against the desecrating, nationally embarrassing and defamatory tyranny of the inglorious and, fortunately, expired Abure NEC.
9. We hereby call on all true Labour Party members and Nigerians in general to join hands with the NTC and the anticipated positive outcome of the Umuahia roundtable to expand Labour Party’s goodwill and the excellent reputations of Peter Obi, Alex Otti, other performing elected state and national officers of the Labour Party as modern Nigeria’s leadership paragons for voters value to our party on the runway to 2027. This is the goal of NTC.
Conclusion
The above mission can best be realized through the commitment of stakeholders to the conduct of constitutionally compliant state congresses culminating in an all-inclusive national convention. An ideal which millions of Labour Party members, Obidients and well-meaning Nigerians nationwide believe the forthcoming Umuahia roundtable will identify with come September 4, 2024.
Nigerians of all states, zones, tribes and faiths await decisions of wisdom from the East.