Peter Obi Never Believed In Labour Party, says Doyin Okupe

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

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

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

The former director-general, who resigned his membership of the Labour Party in January on the grounds of ideological differences, said his party membership ended the moment the former Anambra governor 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 defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the Labour Party in the build-up to the 2023 Presidential election.