Nigeria: Abure's Misplaced Bitterness Against Obi

Peter Obi of the Labour Party, left, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (file photo).
14 June 2026

As the 2027 general election approaches, the factional National Chairman of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Julius Abure, appears to be on a mission to destroy the opposition parties and facilitate the victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the polls.

Instead of campaigning to wrestle power from the ruling APC, Abure is either causing a crisis in LP to weaken the party, or attacking the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. Peter Obi.

Many LP members claimed that Abure's activities forced Obi to defect from the LP to the NDC but he is still attacking him as if his mission is to destroy the opposition instead of campaigning for his party to win elections.

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Last week, Abure threw caution to the wind when he advised the national leader of the NDC, Senator Seriake Dickson, to be cautious in his alliance with Obi and his supporters.

In a statement he personally signed last Monday, he said Dickson appeared to have learnt from the recent crisis in the LP, describing the NDC leader's alleged refusal to concede all elective positions in the party to Obi's supporters as commendable.

He alleged that Obi and Governor Alex Otti of Abia State, and many of their supporters who won elections on the platform of the LP in 2023 have since turned against the party's leadership.

"I want to say that Obi and his followers are ingrates who will never remember the sacrifices you made for them. It is even dangerous for the leadership of the NDC to wholly hand over the elective positions to Obi and his followers," he said.

Since Abure was removed by the members of the National Executive Committee of the party, he has been very bitter, and has made public attacks on the former Anambra State governor a profession.

But many believe that he is the architect of his own problem.

His critics argue that he must be living in a fool's paradise to think that his appeal at the Supreme Court will favour him when both the Federal High Court and Court of Appeal had relied on the same apex court's previous judgement to sack him.

Many have also advised him to stop allowing himself to be used by the enemies of democracy as agent destabilisation.

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