Mr Yunusa Tanko, spokesman of the Labour Party (LP) presidential campaign council, has said Peter Obi, the party’s presidential candidate in the last election, does not have any plan of dumping the party.
Tanko, said this during a media chat with newsmen on Friday.
According to him, Obi remains a solid member of the LP and has not discussed forming a new political party with anyone.
Recall that the Labour Party has been entangled in controversy before, during and after the general election, with many supporters of Obi, known as ‘Obidients’, calling on him to leave and form a new party.
They have vowed to follow him to wherever he decides to pitch tent.
Barrister Julius Abure, the national chairman of the LP, was on Wednesday arrested by joint security operatives in Edo state for alleged “attempted murder, illegal possession of a firearm, and other offences”.
However, Obi who condemned the humiliating arrest, warned that no pretext should be deployed to gag the opposition in the country, and demanded that Abure be granted bail given his status, while investigation over the alleged offences continue.
Meanwhile, when asked if Obi is leaving the party, Tanko said Obi remains a strong member of the LP and has been defending the party as best he could.
“Not at all. At the moment, he is not contemplating leaving the Labour Party,” he said.
“His Excellency, Mr. Peter Obi, is trying to build a platform that accommodates everybody. There is no doubt he has added credibility and purposefulness to the Labour Party.
“Right now, he has not said anything about leaving the party anytime soon. Even if there is such a motive, we would have been intimated.
“He has been defending the LP as strongly as he can. As far as we are concerned, if there are issues within the party, all we need to do is a clean-up and make corrections as soon as possible.”
On the subject of a merger, Tanko said Obi is ready to join forces with anyone who believes in rescuing the country from its current morass.
“The idea of Peter Obi is that we should all join forces with everybody who believes in rescuing Nigeria,” Tanko added.
“If you believe in the mantra of a new Nigeria, you are welcome to join whichever movement His Excellency, Mr. Peter Obi, is doing.”
Also, speaking on the alleged report of Peter Obi leaving the Labour Party, Michael Jude Nwolisa, media aide to the former governor of Anambra State, described it as fake and fallacious.
Nwolisa in a statement he made available to NewsBand said the report is not true and did not originate from Obi or Obidient Movement.
The statement reads, “The Peter Obi Media Reach, POMR wishes to outrightly dismiss trending fake and fallacious news story suggesting that he was parting ways with the Labour Party.
“This is not true and it did not originate from Obi or the Obidient Movement but from mischief makers bent on sowing the seed of discord in the party.
“These rising misdemeanors on the party did not start today as they set out to destroy and disorganize the party all to get at Obi and derail the inevitable journey of rescuing Nigeria.
“Presently our principal is preoccupied with making Nigeria work not on partisan politics which ended on October 26, 2023, when the Supreme Court of the land took their final decision on the general elections.
“Those bent on creating a crisis in the Labour Party are clearly enemies of democracy wishing for the failed status quo to remain.
“OBI’s focus at the moment is on creating an environment where democracy is to be practiced according to the defined tenets not the rascality and all forms of impunity prevalent in the country today
“Peter Obi therefore would like to assure Nigerians, particularly the Obidient family that his way with Labour is unshaken and intact and that the struggle to rescue Nigeria from the criminal gangs holding it down will not stop until it’s achieved through the will of the Nigerian people”.