Peter Obi never believed in Labour Party – Doyin Okupe

A former director-general of the Labour Party presidential campaign, Doyin Okupe, says the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, never believed in the ideologies of the party.

The Labour Party, according to Okupe, was just a special purpose vehicle (SPV) for the presidential election.

Okupe spoke while featuring on Arise Television’s ‘The Morning Show’.

Okupe who resigned his membership of the Labour Party in January, on the grounds of ideological differences said his membership of the party ended the moment Obi lost the election.

He said: “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, an ex-governor of Anambra defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the Labour Party in the build up to the 2023 Presidential election.