Kenneth Okonkwo, the former spokesperson for the Labour Party (LP) Presidential Campaign Council, has announced his resignation from the party, effective February 25, 2025.
In a detailed statement, Okonkwo attributed his decision to the party’s current state of dysfunction and a leadership crisis that has left it “non-existent as presently constituted.”
“In the Constitution of Labour Party, the tenure of the ward, local government, and state party executives is three years (See Article 15(2)(3)(4) of the Labour Party Constitution). Having conducted no congresses at these levels within the constitutionally allowed tenure of the executives, their regimes have effectively expired.
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.”
Okonkwo, also a lawyer, said that if Abure was interested in the emergence of a southern candidate in Labour Party to challenge President Bola Tinubu in the 2027 presidential election, he would cede the position of national chairman to the north.
