{"id":67799,"date":"2025-06-11T15:38:18","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T15:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=67799"},"modified":"2025-06-11T15:38:18","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T15:38:18","slug":"obi-labour-party-leadership-trade-blame-over-2027-alleged-blackmail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/06\/11\/obi-labour-party-leadership-trade-blame-over-2027-alleged-blackmail\/","title":{"rendered":"Obi, Labour Party Leadership Trade Blame Over 2027, Alleged Blackmail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Anifowoshe Oladipupo<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Tensions have deepened between the Labour Party (LP), and its 2023 presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, as fresh accusations and counterclaims emerge ahead of the 2027 general election.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement on Tuesday, the party\u2019s National Secretary, Umar Farouk, accused Obi of launching a sustained media campaign to blackmail the National Chairman, Julius Abure, and other senior officials of the party.<\/p>\n<p>The latest rift followed Obi\u2019s appearance on Arise Television, during which he alleged that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), had infiltrated the Labour Party in a bid to destabilize its leadership.<\/p>\n<p>Reacting, the party leadership dismissed Obi\u2019s claims as baseless and challenged him to provide concrete evidence. It accused him of failing to take responsibility for the internal crisis rocking the party.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur attention was drawn to an interview granted by Mr. Obi in which he alleged that the APC-led Federal Government has infiltrated the Labour Party. But when asked to present evidence, he offered nothing substantial,\u201d Farouk stated.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnfortunately, Mr. Obi continues to mislead Nigerians about the root causes of the party\u2019s internal crisis, even though such challenges are not uncommon in political parties,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Farouk went further to attribute the party\u2019s troubles to Obi and Governor Alex Otti of Abia State, who he claimed remains suspended for anti-party activities.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen good leaders fall short, they should accept responsibility. Mr. Obi failed to provide effective leadership for the party and should stop shifting blame,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Despite Obi\u2019s criticisms during the interview, Farouk pointed out that his reference to Abure as the party\u2019s national chairman signaled an implicit acceptance of the current leadership.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs far as the party is concerned, the matter is settled and Julius Abure remains the National Chairman of the Labour Party. That fact is not in dispute,\u201d Farouk maintained.<\/p>\n<p>He called on Obi and other aggrieved members to accept the reality of the current leadership and work towards the unity and stability of the party.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe urge Mr. Peter Obi and others to move beyond personal grievances and join hands to rebuild and strengthen the Labour Party ahead of future elections,\u201d Farouk concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Anifowoshe Oladipupo Tensions have deepened between the Labour Party (LP), and its 2023 presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, as fresh accusations and counterclaims emerge ahead of the 2027 general election. In a statement on Tuesday, the party\u2019s National Secretary, Umar Farouk, accused Obi of launching a sustained media campaign to blackmail the National Chairman, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":67800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67799"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67801,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67799\/revisions\/67801"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}