Labour Party Crisis: Presidency Working To Strip Obi Of Party Platform By 2027 –Tanko

NewtelegraphngJune 21, 2025Read original

The Interim National Coordinator of the Obidient Movement Worldwide, Dr. Yunusa Tanko in this interview

talked about the involvement of the group in the proposed coalition arrangement by numerous opposition figures to oust the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) from power. He also did an assessment of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led government. Excerpts:

For us in the Obidient Movement, the only option open to us as a group is the option that the leader of our group would take ahead of the forthcoming election. We are going to consult widely with him and await any option that he feels is good for us as a body. There is no gain saying the fact that the leader of our great movement is Mr. Peter Obi. So, we will be bound by whatever decision that he will take that we will collectively as a group follow. On our own part, we will give him all the needed support when a decision is taken at the end of the day.

Well, I can confirm to you that Mr. Peter Obi is one of the leaders of the coalition initiative and I can also say that though the activities of the coalition are still at discussion stage, I want to say that he is carrying everyone along. He has even made it clear to us that he is in the coalition to ensure that the country enjoys good governance at all levels. He has repeatedly told us that he is for the betterment of the country. For him, these are his major concerns. Of course, we are with him on this. We are with him on these issues of eradicating the circle of poverty from the country. We are looking at putting a lot of people into wealth not penury and hunger that is ravaging the country. So, these are the options as regards where he wants us to go ahead of 2027. We have all, I mean the partners in the Coalition, agreed that we cannot do this (win election) alone. This is why all hands have to be on deck.

Our level of involvement in the coalition is very high. We have been part of the series of discussions that have taken place so far. Our opinions have continued to shape such discussions that have taken place in the coalition. I represented him at meetings whenever he wasn’t around, so I can tell you the level of commitment that he has put into putting the coalition into place. The efforts we are making to ensure that we wrest power and control from the APC and return prosperity to the people. Like I said before, we are working to remove the people from the shackles of poverty, misery and want. In short, we are working and hoping for a better life for the people.

Well, he has been impressing upon everyone who has been asking about where he stands that as of today, he remains a member of the Labour Party. That also means that we, members of the Obidient Movement, are still in the Labour Party. That will apply to us as long as we have the need to change course in our political journey. But with regards to the issue of where we are at the moment, we are at the Labour Party as members and that is where we are for now.

I can tell you for free that there is no iota of truth in the rumour making the rounds. So far, there is nothing on ground as we speak to suggest that our leader, Mr. Peter Obi, will run with Alhaji Atiku Abubakar or anyone else come 2027. As we speak, he is running for the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I am sure that those who are making this insinuation are doing so merely to fly kites to see whether that will stick but for crying out loud, I want us not to make the same mistake that we made during the June 12, 1993 election. In 1993, the election was squarely based on the popular support for the late Chief MKO Abiola. At that time, the North had the ace to play but everyone voted for Chief Abiola. Even his opponent, Alhaji (Bashir) Tofa lost his home base of Kano to Chief Abiola. The preference of Nigerians for Chief was very clear. Regrettably, along the line, people began to manipulate that particular result; now the same scenario is presenting itself in the case of Mr Obi. As we speak today, it is crystal clear that Mr Obi is the most popular in this country and around the world for Nigeria. The question now would be, why would we now make the same mistake of not supporting him and then coming back later on to explain to ourselves the mistake that we made? It is the turn of the Southern part of this country and that is clear. Even if the presidential candidate would come, it should be from the South. We have a gentleman in the person of Mr. Obi. In the interest of the unity and progress of the country, this is the best time to unite the country. I can tell you that the candidature of Mr. Obi represents a significant shift from the old order and so therefore, I urge all of us, wherever we come from to give our full support for Mr. Obi.

(Cuts in) Peter Obi is not insisting; on the contrary, he has always stated that he is not desperate to become the president of the country. He has continued to restate that he is desperate to make the country work for us all. Based on all of the records of his activities, what other choice do we have as a people in terms of the best material to rule the country? This is the reason why I am saying we should all support him as the best candidate. So, it would be a wrong choice to look for another person apart from him. This explains the appeal his candidature enjoys among Nigerian youths. His are beautiful and lofty ideas of how to move the country forward by reworking Nigeria away from being a debtor nation to a prosperous and progressive one, where even if you have to borrow money, it would be for productive purposes and not to be stolen and put the younger and unborn generations into serious debt trap.

As far as I am concerned, what is happening within our party has been confirmed in the speech of President Bola Tinubu to the National Assembly on June 12 when he said ‘he’s happy to see the opposition in disarray. His Excellency Mr Obi has continued to accuse the President and the Presidency of involvement in the crisis rocking the opposition party; this is not happening in the Labour Party alone, it is happening in virtually all the opposition parties and their (ruling party’s) plan is to create a scenario where Obi would not have any platform to run on. That will be counterproductive but it would happen. We will contest the 2027 general election by the grace of God and there will be a platform upon which that will be achieved. The government in power is the main promoter of the crisis within the opposition political parties.

The solution lies in the hands of INEC, they are the electoral umpire, they have all the dossiers with regards to all that have transpired within the party till date. The only thing hampering INEC to act accordingly is that it lacks the political will to act. It lacks the courage to do the right thing. If they do, history will be kind to them and will not forget them. If they don’t they will have it in their file as people who were in position to do the right thing and they failed to. My prayer for them is that they do what is right.

Like I said before, the government of the day should prepare for the crisis. Of course, I agree that the room might have been created by the political parties themselves but then, the government has refused to defend democracy by fanning the discord and by extension killing democracy. Because of the crack that they saw on the walls of the parties, they quickly took advantage of it and amplified the mayhem to distort and cause some form of imbalance in all the major opposition parties in the country. This is clearly against the tenets of democracy. I think the government ought to have put its foot down to make sure that they ensure that democracy and all its tenets are safeguarded. I think the current government ought to direct INEC to do the right thing with regards to all legal issues within the opposition parties.

I have made my assessment based on the two- pronged agenda of the manifesto of the APC which says that they were going to work out a social contract with the Nigerian people, saying they were going to provide three million jobs in a year, which means by now we should have about six million jobs. That hasn’t happened. They promised to bring infrastructure, they promised to ensure security in the country; if that had happened we wouldn’t be having what we are having in Benue and Taraba states. There has not been any kind of improvement in the economy of the country because as we speak, there is growing mass hunger in the country. These are things that are negative about this particular government and so I wonder how some people have the strength to defend this government that is doing badly. We need to do some kind of comparison between what we used to have before and what we have now.