Kenneth Okonkwo quits LP, says party not ready for 2027 election
A former spokesperson for the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council, Kenneth Okonkwo, has resigned his party membership.
Okonkwo made this known in a press statement he signed on Tuesday.
In the statement, the former LP campaign spokesperson said the party is not ready for the 2027 general election due to internal and leadership crises.
He said, “My entrance to politics is for good governance, and I will continue to work for it to ensure that Nigeria becomes a great country of incorruptible men.
“This aim can no longer be realised within Labour Party as presently constituted.
“Since the party is non-existent as presently constituted, I am constrained to resign my membership of the party.
“To all Nigerians of goodwill who supported us when we needed them most, I pledge my continued loyalty to the Nigerian people in all I will decide to do in my political future.”
The Nollywood actor said he is open to pitching his political tent elsewhere.
“This resignation takes effect from the 25th of February, 2025, which marks the second anniversary of the presidential election of 2023, after which I will be at liberty to join other well-meaning and like-minded Nigerians in charting a great future of good governance for this great country blessed by God,” he added.
Okonkwo said the tenure of the party’s leadership had long elapsed and the caretaker committee set up to salvage the party has been hindered by unnecessary litigation.
He criticised the national chairman of the LP, Julius Abure, for allegedly prioritising personal interests over the party’s survival.
“The former National Chairman of Labour Party, Julius Abure, and his former National Working Committee, having conducted no national convention known to law, according to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and the courts having held that the issue of the leadership of a political party is the internal affair of a political party for which the courts do not have the jurisdiction to entertain, there’s no effective leadership of Labour Party at the national level.
“The Senator Nenadi Usman-led Caretaker Committee, which was duly and legally set up by the National Executive Council (NEC) of the Labour Party, after the non-recognition of Abure-led National Working Committee (NWC) by INEC, and was given six months to conduct congresses and the convention, was the only viable option towards salvaging the Labour Party.
“Unfortunately, Abure and his colleagues, with the collaboration of outside forces, expectedly, being political jobbers, launched unnecessary legal challenges against this Caretaker Committee that have inhibited it from functioning. It’s more than six months after the inauguration of the committee, and the committee has not even taken off, leading many to conclude that the objective of these politicians of bread and butter with their outside collaborators is to bog down the serious members of Labour Party with frivolous and unnecessary litigation till the 2027 election is over.
“Isn’t it curious that a national executive of a political party whose elected members are defecting everyday to other parties, and who can not wage legal battles to recover these seats for their party, is waging ferocious legal battles to maintain their destructive, choking hold on the party,” he asserted.
