A former director-general of the Labour Party presidential campaign, Doyin Okupe, has said the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, never believed in the ideologies of the party.
Okupe, who said the LP was just a special purpose vehicle (SPV) for the presidential election, spoke on Arise Television’s ‘The Morning Show’.
Okupe resigned his membership of the LP in January, on the grounds of ideological differences.
Hey said his membership of the party ended the moment Obi lost the election.
According to him, “The LP for us — for Peter Obi and I — and those in the leadership of the movement… The party was a special purpose vehicle (SPV). I have never been a labour person, I have never operated on the left before but we needed a platform and this was the only platform readily available to us.
“We thought that if we won the election… there are no fast and hard rules about ideologies. You can always find a shade between the left and the right. You can always move to the centre.
“We were hoping and praying that if we won, we would find a way to come to some consensus with the labour.
“Peter Obi is not a labour person. He is not a leftist person, he is a trader, he is a businessman just like me. I am a liberal democrat, I believe in liberal democracy, I believe in free enterprise.
“I am not a social worker. As far as I’m concerned, my membership of labour expired the moment we lost that election.”
Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, defected from the Peoples Democratic Party to the Labour Party in the build up to the 2023 Presidential election.