By Ayo Yusuf
The leadership of the Labour Party, LP, has vowed that its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, will never join President Bola Tinubu’s government of national unity.
The position of the party was stated in two separate interviews with the National Publicity Secretary of LP, Obiora Ifoh, and the National Legal Adviser of the party, Kehinde Edun.
The party’s position is coming six days after the former Anambra State governor shaded the president on Arise TV’s ‘Morning Show’ following the controversy surrounding the latter’s academic records at Chicago State University.
Mr. Obi had noted that any leader who falsifies his credentials or age could not be trusted to do the right thing and is unfit to lead the people.
He said, “We are at the point where we are challenging the process and that has to come to a logical end before any other thing. These are parts of what makes a nation.
The processes through which people assume office are far more important than what they do thereafter. It is important that people come in through the right door and not just jump in through the window and keep saying ‘Let’s move on.’
“The issue of qualification is the issue of leaders making statements and doing things that are honest and truthful. This is an issue of honour and integrity.
“If you look at what is happening in Nigeria today, there are so many issues of certificates, age, and all sorts of one falsification or the other with the leaders. There is no way people can do this and be able to do the right thing. That means they are living a falsified life.”
A few days after Obi’s scathing remark, his party also admonished the Peoples Democratic Party presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, not to drag the LP candidate into his feud with the president.
The party was reacting to an earlier call by Atiku, for Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso to join his crusade in exposing the alleged dirty secrets of the president.
The reaction of LP was seen by some people as a possibility that Obi would prefer to work with Tinubu than team up with his former PDP ally, Atiku.
But the national legal adviser of LP insisted that such a thing can never come to pass, reiterating that Obi has already made his stance known.
He said, “I think Obi has something he is pursuing, especially when we are sure we won the election. So it will be out of place for us to now say we want to work with this government. As far as LP is concerned, we are waiting for the Supreme Court to set aside the decision of the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal that will pronounce Obi as the winner. That’s what we are waiting for.
“This is why we cannot be talking about Obi, somebody who is the owner of the mandate, working with somebody who is a pretender to the office. Until we see the end of this case at the Supreme Court, it is not over.”
Similarly, the party’s spokesman also insisted that the LP candidate can’t be distracted by such a notion as he is presently focused on reclaiming his ‘stolen mandate’ from the apex court.
“We are still in the process of reclaiming our stolen mandate through our appeal at the Supreme Court. There is no way our candidate can be seen working for this government. For now, he is focused on the appeal at the apex,” he said.
