The Labour Party’s Failure is Peter Obi’s Failure, By Kassim Afegbua

Chinua Achebe said “ things fall apart when the center cannot hold.” This is so true as I watch the Labour Party fall apart, and indeed under!! I am still wondering how on Earth Peter Obi would have run this country, if he was allowed to seize it. In 2023, some so-called political experts predicted a Peter Obi victory following very dubious opinion polls that were also fickle. I reasoned then that Peter Obi’s chances were over exaggerated, because the facts on ground did not support the unempirical conclusions drawn by the members of the “Obidients” movement and their psychedelic sponsors. Obi rode on that movement, doused with hypocrisy, and decorated with contradiction, he traveled across the country to rake in votes by sheer divisive tactics that further exposed his parochialism. If unfortunately he made it to President, Obi would not have represented the cutting-edge. Looking back to his reign as Governor of Anambra state, I cannot see any cutting-edge intervention to situate Anambra on the pedestal of an Eldorado. Anambra remains a state ravaged by erosion and flooding, rustic in outlook, poorly entrenched within decayed infrastructure with disgraceful human development statistics. If we made anything of the optics of the “Obidients” movement in 2023 and the razzmatazz of the media blitz, we would have run into a hasty conclusion that Obi ought to have won the election. He couldn’t even argue his case at the tribunal, as he vacilated from here to there clutching at one flotsam or the other, in a seeming fishing expedition, trying to conjure up images and imageries to score cheap political points.

His Labour Party under Julius Abure, is as psychedelic as they all who run it; some unknown quantities who were hustling to grab whatever was donated, to consolidate their grip on crass materialism. Their organisational skills and knowledge are bizarre. Their disorganisation was like an April Fools Day prank; unfortunately, it was real. They had no substance save for some dithering youths making social media noise to up the ante of Obi’s political novo- expedition. They couldn’t even submit their polling units full agents to INEC. They tried to cover up their lapses and latched unto a condemnation of INEC when the iREV facility hit the rock. Stranded even after that, they took INEC to the slaughter slab, still struggling to cover up their inadequacies and deficiencies. For a party that was receiving such volumes of youth endorsement, a little more pluck and proper organisation would have delivered them. Protestations, quarreling, noise, litigations, and broken down communication is the order of the day among their ranks. Its parent body, the NLC reincarnated its prodigy, the Labour Party, run by largely immature political felons. These people quarrel every day and every night; struggling to gain control of the veterbrae of the party’s inner structure. One faction is always after the other: they are usually at each other’s jugular, and at nerve racking gusto, to gain entrance into the party’s fortress; into her vault.

Peter Obi would not have been a good president. See him now, at the brink of jumping ship; a supposed high level leader. We saw the traits in the morning. He is a bundle of confusion and contradiction, we saw it all even though he tried to live a lifestyle that was alien to him, in a bid to impress the shallow minded. He flies private jets, ride state of the arts bullet-proof SUVs, and opulence and grandeur are his companions. He just punished himself in those months by dressing in the same pair of shoes, wearing one wrist-watch, and so on to deceive people. He wanted to confuse the emasculated and gullible people. We now know also that Obi ran a parallel structure from the Party’s. He came up with what he called a summary of his campaign expenditure; in it, the better part of his income was spent on litigations! His party permanently dogged by in-fighting, is yet to publish its audited account which will reveal more to us. We are waiting for when they will be done with their in-fighting. The party has been a drifting line, erupting volcanoes, trying to properly stabilise its adrenaline. In the process, it has sunk into a deeper abyss, leaving Obi in a frenzy, searching for fresh alliances and affiliations. He now wants to abandon the Labour Party’s ferry to grab the SDP canoe, in trying to stay afloat. I am already seeing the movements that may after all goad him on the path to political perfidy.

A supposed presidential material as Obi ought to show tact and diplomacy now, and rein in his party apparachik and show leadership by example. Allowing his Labour Party members to flock like sheep without a shepherd is the most unconscionable behaviour of anyone who has come out to be president of this great country. Abure, the Labour Party’s combustible and rambuctious chairman, is as reckless as a drunken driver; and the state of the party today shows this. Every new day comes with a new tinge of disagreement and quarrel; and Peter Obi cannot take charge and show leadership grit to consolidate on his gains in the 2023 outing. It is clear now that it was all just a contest for power, not necessarily about any forthright desire to create a New Nigeria that will work. Now the Labour Party is headed for the rocks; her members are behaving like famished baboons let loose into a banana plantation. I pity their followers! Labour Party will soon become an abandoned property, it wil soon be left to rot in the hands of debtor tenants who are unable to render account of its initial solvency.

From my crystal ball, I see Obi jumping out of the Labour Party to build fresh alliances to birth his 2027 daydream. If Obi were properly advised, or better still, if he possessed the cutting-edge, he would have built the Labour Party to become an attractive brand, such that it would be the cynosure of all. With regards to the party’s current crisis, he ought to have deployed his “leadership skills” to mend the fractures and resolve the factions in the party. Unfortunately, all that Obi wanted from the party was for it to make him be called Mr. President. Now, whether the Labour Party survives or capsizes, does not matter to him. It was just a ride he hitched to take him to Aso Rock; now the vehicle has hit the rock, he declares that he has no stake. He’s already abandoning the vehicle to grab another one for 2027. Labour Party’s failure to organize themselves, is Obi’s failure. Peter Obi’s failure to take charge and stir the vehicle to stability at this material time, is the reason why Labour Party members have shown their dereliction to duties. I was just wondering: if this was the ruling party, is this how they would have been scrambling for control of the structure of the party while leading us to Eldorado? Political parties are usually very meticulous in the leadership recruitment process, so to understand that Peter Obi does not care in the least, what obtains in his party, is to understand the selfish import of his leadership in the first place.

Lastly, the statement that Peter Obi made recently, about him coming to reposition and rebuild Nigeria and not Labour Party is disgraceful and unfortunate. If in today’s Nigeria and at this contemporary time, Peter Obi is not aware that political parties are the only platforms for leadership recruitment, then he must have left his boots at home while trying to fight to lead Nigeria, under the disguise that he wanted to fix it. It is laughable for a man of his status to be so loose lipped. In political parties, we uphold internal democracy because it has its strong invariable ripple effect on whatever obtains outside the perimeters of the parties. In any leadership recruitment process, we do not downplay the very important function of the leadership of the political parties, but when the parties are disorganized, and unable to stream together her agenda and objectives to make any meaningful impact on the leadership recruitment process, then very likely the outcome will be the emergence of the likes of Julius Abure, Apapa and their ilks srambling for attention with nothing to offer. I am shocked that Peter Obi does not know or realise that if the Labour Party is well managed, they will then have better chances, and opportunities of attracting more members that will rally round the party to make it even more of a movement that can alter the status quo. Obi’s declaration that trying to build the country and not the Labour Party was the reason he contested election last year, is insubstantial; his naivety is humiliating, his understanding of politics ridiculously stunted, and his conclusion on their latest fisticuffs unfortunately contemptible.