By Abiola Olawale
A former stalwart of the Labour Party (LP), Kenneth Okonkwo, has slammed LP’s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, accusing him of betrayal and alleged weak leadership.
Okonkwo, an actor-turned-politician raised these accusations in a viral video circulating on social media.
He criticized Obi’s alleged inaction during the Labour Party’s internal crisis, which he said was what pushed him to exit the party.
Okonkwo claimed Obi went against his advice and returned to support the embattled Julius Abure-led faction of the party, despite alleged warnings.
He stated: “Any politician who knows what he’s doing cannot be betrayed by another. If there is anybody who betrayed the other, I can say emphatically that Peter Obi betrayed me.
“The Julius Abure-led LP members lied to Obi that the Independent National Electoral Commission had accepted them and Obi surreptitiously went back to them but I told him: ‘Sir, you have made a public statement on integrity and even if INEC has accepted them, that is not a criterion for you to go back and start dealing with them because they have shown that they are not democratic. If you go back to them, they will destroy your political career and everything you have said about integrity will die.’”
He said that despite privately urging Obi not to align with a group he described as “undemocratic” and “agents of the government,” Okonkwo said Obi went ahead to publicly endorse them.
“I told Obi that these people had become agents in the hands of the government to destabilise him. What they did was illegal and unconstitutional, I told him that if he went back to them, I wouldn’t join him in doing so.
“Thereafter, I called all the people who were in the inner circle and told them the same thing about what Obi was trying to do. I told them he wanted to go back with the Abure people and if he did, I wouldn’t go back with him because I do not swallow back my words.
“And after saying all those things, within like 72 hours, Obi went back to Abure’s office to publicly endorse them and while he was there talking to them, one of the leaders in that executive sent me the video to mock me that the person I was fighting for against them has come to their office to endorse them.
“It was when INEC dissociated itself from Abure that Obi came out to start acting neutral but I told him he could not be neutral and something had to be done,” he added.
The New Diplomat reports that this comes amidst an internal crisis bedevilling the Labour Party.
The party has been torn into two factions: the Abure faction and the Nenadi Usman faction.
Recall that Usman emerged as the Caretaker Committee chairman of the Labour Party after a Supreme Court ruling in April 2025 set aside a Court of Appeal decision recognizing Abure as chairman.Usman is backed by Obi and Governor Alex Otti of Abia State.
