Labour Party’s former presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi, is carefully thinking what his political future will be like in the light of the crisis currently bedeviling his party.
Recall that the former Anambra governor had contested the 2023 presidential election on the platform of the Labour Party. Obi at various fora had always made it clear that he is and remains a member of Labour Party, and up until recently hopeful that he would once again be the presidential flagbearer for the Party.
However, events in the past few days have caused him to rethink his political future, and whether it was time he pitched his tent with another party, with a chance of making his dream come through; either his presidential ambition or better still his dream for more prosperous and working Nigeria.
There has been expectation that Obi, who is part of the opposition coalition will dump the LP soon, and pitch his tent with the African Democratic Congress, ADC, but this has not happened yet, as Obi prefers to tread very carefully.
Recall that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, a man known as a serial presidential candidate, and with interest to run against President Bola Tinubu again in 2027, had earlier declared for the ADC.
And as the LP chieftain considers his chances with the ADC, he revealed that the ADC leaders were yet to make certain things clear, especially zoning of positions, while demanding for clearly defined terms and commitments.
Obi reportedly stated that he needed ADC to convince him that the Party is not just one of the same, but has the ability to be different and introduce fresh ideas capable of transforming the country for the better, and restoring public confidence in the political class.
According to reports, the video in circulation has Obi saying: “Today, I’m a member of the Labor Party and I subscribe to coalition, ADC Coalition for the 2027 election. I believe in it.
“But as much as I believe in it, I need to know the fundamentals that we all agree to respect. What are we going to do for the average Nigerian person?
“Because we are not different people. We are still part of the political class. So it’s not as if they were a bunch of new people.
“Yes, I respect all those who are leaders there. Of course, our Chairman, David Mark, is one of those people I respect and I believe has the political sagacity to lead the party.
“And so are so many others we have there people like my own leader, Atiku, somebody who has all my respect, for whom I believe, believes in the good of Nigeria.
“But in all this, there are still some fine lines that we need to respect, where things must be done properly, where we must sit down and talk about where we’re driving the country to.
“Because, like I said, we are not new people, we’re the same political class. So we must come up with new ideas that Nigerians will trust.
“We must come with new things, perspective, and we must try to see how we can give Nigeria the alternative that will come with competence, come with a character, capacity, commitment and compassion to drive these new vehicles, because it’s important.
“We can’t just say, oh, we don’t like what these people are doing. Let them go. If they go, what is the alternative? We’ve done that in 2015 ‘let this man just go and he went’.
“So we now have to be clear: What are we getting? Can we trust those who are going to drive this vehicle that are going to do what they’re saying? Where have they said it before? Okay, somebody told you, sorry,
“It all depends. I am not desperate to become the president of Nigeria. I’m desperate to see Nigeria work. I want to see what is it that they are offering.
“Today, we have what we can say an unsigned agreements about
the presidency, about rotation of offices. This is why this person will come from here, this person will come from there.
“All these things need to be organized. The reason why it needs to be organized is that you don’t need to create confusion for the future.
“Even if it takes us one week to agree, we do. If Nigerians want this country to change, we can make a change.
“It doesn’t matter how, when we started, we can still start three months, six months, eight months, one year to the election and prepare”.
Following the sack of the interim chairman of the National working committee, NWC, of Labour Party, Senator Nenadi Usman and others loyal to Peter Obi, by the Board of Trustees of LP, Obi’s political future hangs in the balance.
However, in all of these, Obi still solidly maintains that he remains a member of the Labour Party.
Political pundits say it is still very much uncertain where the pendulum will swing.
With additional reports from National Posts