Alhaji Lamidi Apapa – led Labour Party (LP) on Saturday admitted that Professor Wole Soyinka was right in his submission that the LP and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, lost the February 25 Presidential Election in Nigeria.
Alh. Apapa said the party only managed to make the position position due to failure to plan and described the reaction of a leader of the party, Julius Abure, through his personal media aide, Mr. Obiorah Ifoh to Soyinka’s statement as an affront and abuse from a rude boy to his grandfather.
Responding in a statement through Dr. Arabambi Abayomi ( NCGC,Non-Controversial Gentleman Comrade), the LP National Publicity Secretary, Apapa added that the vituperation against Soyinka was totally uncalled for, as the Nobel laureate spoke the truth and at a time and age he has nobody to fear.
He said Abure and others ought to take the Nobel laureate’s comments with circumspection and as party, go back to the drawing board and re-strategize so that the LP could stand a chance of coming out stronger in future elections
“The Party sees the reaction of former National Chairman Julius ABURE through his personal media aides Mr Obiorah Ifoh reaction to Prof. Wole Soyinka’s statement as an affront and abuse from a rude boy to his grandfather.
“We know that Prof Soyinka was saying the facts. We failed to plan and we took third position at the election. Our message to the dissidents that claims to be members of our Party is that the vituperation against the Professor is totally uncalled for, since he has said the truth and at his age he has nobody to fear so what we expect as a Party, we need to go back to the drawing board and re-strategize so that the Party can come out stronger in the next elections,” he said.
Apapa explained that the submission of the octogenarian literally giant was not new, recalling that Governor Charles Soludo of Anambra State had earlier predicted that Obi would only struggle to make third position as there was no credible pathway for ex – governor to come anywhere near the first two positions.
The statement reads in parts, “We know that in Nigeria, we have a Weak truth ,strong lies and many Nigerians are spectators whose sole interest is in who wins.They don’t mind if it is a lie that takes victory over the truth but they are just interested in who wins as openly exemplified by this unending, empty, bitter, misdirected ill-will from some thoroughly demystified political lilliputians and domicile puppets who want to make their argument looks as if it was in the best interest of the general public.
“We know we lost that election, it was true Obi and Abure wanted to do Gbajue because abinitio, even when the Presidential campaign council was formed, in the North, Peter Obi used Igbo as State Coordinators, while northerner remained their deputies .
“Apart from Prof. Wole Soyinka, Anambra State Governor has also said it that Obi is a trader who is in politics to trade.
The Governor of Anambra was reported to said, ‘ I wish him well and even pray for him. I told him during his courtesy call that my prayer is that himself or Prof Umeadi of APGA would win, why not? That is from my heart, but I also told him that my head and facts on the ground led me to know that it’s probability is next to zero (what I cannot say before you, I won’t say behind you). So I already told him my opinion. Indeed, there is no credible pathway for him near the first two positions, and if care is not taken, he won’t even near the third position. Analysts tell him you don’t need ‘structure’ to win. Fantasy! Of course, LP won governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun on social media and via phantom polls, while getting barely 2,000 votes on ground. Creating a credible third force for presidential election in Nigeria requires a totally different strategy and extreme hard work’
“At this juncture, we must asked what are his achievements as Anambra governor. He invested Anambra money in a bank in which he has interest. That alone is a crime and this was the same thing he did in Labour Party with Julius Abure.We were deceived at NWC and NEC meeting, to make projections for the fund needed in respect of the 2023 General Election and Peter Obi made our videos for that meeting resolution and presented it to Nigerians home and abroad for funds to be raised for the Party. When the funds were raised, some people precipitated a crisis and we didn’t know anything about the entire donations to the party
“They did not support any candidate financially, they did not rent party Secretariat at the ward, local government and state.No campaign material was produced neither was any vehicle purchased for the party at the states except the Igbos in the National Working Committee.
“Peter Obi added no value to the Party but he is spending money for the prosecution of the needless, untidy election petition at the PEPT which is an wholesome shenanigans destined to fail. This is Gbajue authenticated syndrome.That’s why we failed woefully. Imagine somebody that has no polling unit result sheet, no agents in majority of the polling units now turn around to claim election victory. So, how then do we say we won.
“Peter Obi did not pay agents for the presidential election that is why he failed woefully at the PEPT. Peter Obi never supported the party to rent offices at the ward, Local Government, State and National Secretariat. No vehicle was purchased by Peter Obi for campaign at any level before and during elections.
No candidates of the party was supported with any Kobo before and during the campaign and Election proper
All the money meant for agents across the 176,606 polling units at 10,000 naira per agents was not paid. Apart from that, he was unable to file all the necessary documents at the right time, all these his lawyers who are majorly Igbo know and failed to advise him.
“As a Party we knew that the Professor Woke Soyinka was right in his submission because how does anyone claimed to have won an election based solely on pejoratives, assumption, vague rhetorics and zero evidence pointing to such being the case, but on the expectation that the actual winner would be disqualified and by some stroke of black magic, the candidate in the 3rd place will suddenly be declared winner without any proof of having scored the majority vote is absolute judicial joke on display by Peter Obi and Julius Abure.”
