Peter Obi only using Labour Party for ambition, doesn’t believe in it – Doyin Okupe

Former director-general of the Labour Party (LP) presidential campaign, Doyin Okupe, said its candidate for the 2023 presidential election, Peter Obi, never believed in the principles of the political party.

Okupe made this assertion during his interview on Arise Television’s ‘The Morning Show’.

He said Obi only saw the Labour Party as a platform to contest last year’s presidential election.

“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),” Okupe said.

“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.”

Okupe revealed that they were hoping and praying that if the party won the presidential election, they would find a way to come to some consensus with the labour.

He added that Obi is not a labour person, neither is the former Anambra state governor a leftist person but only a trader.

Okupe said Obi is a businessman just like himself. He stated that he is a liberal democrat who believes in liberal democracy and also believes in free enterprise.

“I am not a social worker. As far as I am concerned, my membership of labour expired the moment we lost that election.”

READ ALSO: Doyin Okupe resigns from Labour Party, cites ideological differences

Obi, Okupe and others left the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for LP a few months to the 2023 presidential election.

Okupe later announced his resignation from the Labour Party on January 8, 2024, citing ideological differences.

Okupe in a letter explained that his lifelong alignment with right-wing and liberal democratic principles clashed with the party’s left-of-center ideology which made his membership of the party untenable.