Reported by: Oahimire Omone Precious | Edited by: Oravbiere Osayomore Promise.
The Factional National Chairman of the Labour Party, Julius Abure, has issued a strongly worded warning to the leadership of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) and its national leader, Senator Seriake Dickson, urging them to be cautious in their alliance with former presidential candidate Peter Obi and his supporters. Abure claimed that Obi and his followers have a history of taking over political parties that accommodate them, and that the Labour Party paid a heavy price for the concessions it made to the former Anambra governor during the 2023 election cycle.
In a statement issued on Monday, June 8, 2026, Abure said that Dickson’s decision not to hand over all elective positions in the NDC to Obi’s supporters was a wise and necessary step to prevent a repeat of what he described as the hostile takeover of the Labour Party. According to Abure, Labour Party leaders made significant concessions during the 2022/2023 elections, including offering free nomination tickets to many candidates who later won elections under the party’s platform. However, he alleged that instead of showing gratitude, Obi’s allies later turned against the party leadership and made concerted efforts to wrest control of the party from its founding structures.
“Obi and his followers are ingrates who will never remember the sacrifices you made for them,” Abure said. He argued that many politicians who won elections on the Labour Party platform under its free‑ticket policy later joined efforts to challenge the party’s leadership, abandoning the very platform that gave them victory. “Immediately they saw that Obi was interested in the leadership of the party, all those elected under the platform of the party simply followed Obi, forgetting all the sacrifices and suffering we made for them,” he stated.
The Labour Party chairman specifically mentioned Abia State Governor Alex Otti and other elected officials who ran on the Labour Party ticket in 2023, accusing them of turning against the party leadership after benefiting from its support. “Most of the tickets were for free. But ironically, when they came into power, they went after the leadership of the party,” Abure claimed. He also alleged that elected Labour Party officials had failed to contribute to the growth of the party despite spending years in office, focusing instead on personal political ambitions at the expense of the party’s institutional development.
Abure argued that the NDC leadership was right to balance appointments and positions rather than allowing Obi’s camp to dominate the party structure. “No leader of any political party, seeing what Obi did to Labour Party along with his followers, will make that mistake again,” he warned. The statement came in response to public questions about how the Labour Party managed its relationship with Obi and his supporters during the 2023 election cycle, as well as recent reports of friction within the NDC over the allocation of party positions between the Kwankwasiyya movement and Obi’s supporters.
The relationship between Obi and the Labour Party has been a subject of intense debate since the 2023 general elections. Obi, who was a member of the Peoples Democratic Party before defecting to the Labour Party in 2022, secured the party’s presidential ticket and went on to achieve a third‑place finish in the election, winning over six million votes and carrying the Federal Capital Territory. However, his campaign also brought unprecedented attention to the Labour Party, swelling its membership and turning it into a formidable opposition platform. After the election, tensions emerged between the party’s old guard and Obi’s supporters over the direction of the party, culminating in a protracted leadership crisis.
The crisis led to the emergence of two factions: one led by Julius Abure, which is recognised by the Independent National Electoral Commission, and another led by Senator Nenadi Usman, which is backed by Obi and Governor Otti. The Abure faction has maintained that the Labour Party’s structure predates Obi’s arrival and that the former candidate and his allies are attempting to hijack the party for their own political ambitions. The Usman faction, on the other hand, has accused Abure of running a one‑man show and failing to carry other stakeholders along.
In March 2026, the Abure faction held a national convention in Nnewi, Anambra State, where it re‑elected Abure as national chairman. The convention was attended by delegates from across the country, but the Obi‑backed faction boycotted the event, describing it as illegal. INEC, however, has continued to recognise the Abure leadership, further deepening the divide. In May 2026, the Obi faction concluded a merger with the NDC, where Obi emerged as the presidential candidate alongside former Kano State Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso as his running mate. The move effectively transferred Obi’s political base from the Labour Party to the NDC, a development that Abure appears to have anticipated and now points to as evidence of his earlier warnings.
Abure’s latest comments are seen as an attempt to remind the NDC leadership of the risks of aligning too closely with Obi and his supporters, who he claims have a pattern of abandoning political platforms once they have extracted maximum value from them. While the Labour Party chairman has not publicly called for any specific action against Obi, his statement is clearly aimed at influencing the internal dynamics of the NDC, which is still in the process of building its structures ahead of the 2027 elections.
Reactions to Abure’s statement have been sharply divided. Supporters of Obi and the NDC have dismissed the allegations as sour grapes from a party chairman who feels marginalised by Obi’s departure. “Abure is simply bitter that Obi moved on and took the political momentum with him. The Labour Party was a vehicle, and Obi used it legally. Now he has found a better platform, and Abure cannot accept that,” said a spokesperson for the Obi campaign, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Others, however, have expressed sympathy with Abure’s position, arguing that smaller parties must protect their structures from being overrun by high‑profile defectors who have no long‑term commitment to the party’s growth.
The NDC leadership, particularly Senator Seriake Dickson, has not yet responded to Abure’s warning. However, the party has already shown signs of sensitivity to the issue of power‑sharing. On June 8, it was reported that the NDC had adjusted its candidate lists in Kano State to enforce a 60‑40 power‑sharing formula between the Kwankwasiyya movement and the party’s original structure, a decision that reportedly angered Senator Kwankwaso but was defended by the party as necessary to preserve internal balance. How the NDC manages the competing interests of its constituent groups, including Obi’s supporters, will determine whether Abure’s warning is seen as prophetic or merely partisan.
As the 2027 elections approach, the battle for control of political platforms is only likely to intensify. For Abure, the Labour Party remains a shell of what it was before Obi’s departure. For Obi, the NDC represents a fresh opportunity to challenge the ruling All Progressives Congress. And for the millions of Nigerians who supported the Obi movement, the question is not which party controls the structure, but which structure can deliver the change they seek. Abure has cast his vote of no confidence in Obi’s political character. The electorate will have the final say.
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