 Thank you for staying with us. You're still watching The Breakfast on Plus TV Africa. It's time for a hot topic and we're talking about Peter Obie and the Labour Party. Now, this says Obie denies plans to leave Labour Party in reply to NLC. Joining me to have a conversation is Be'Odun show me. It's a political analyst. Good morning, sir. Thank you for joining us. Good morning. Thank you for having me. All right. So there's been some crisis in the Labour Party. Now, we saw that the NLC is accused, the leader of the Labour Party, the Julius Abre of running the affairs as a sole proprietor. And in fact, there was a vote of confidence, a vote of no confidence that was passed and asked for his resignation. However, that hasn't happened. And then there's just been a little bit of rockers with the Labour Party. Now, some people have come out to say that the presidential candidates of the Labour Party might move to SDP for his political ambition to become president in the 2027 election. But Peter Obie has come out to say that no, he is not leaving the Labour Party. But I just want to get your take before we dive in on, you know, all the happenings, the recent happenings. And would Peter Obie's response to the NLC? Yes. What is not, cannot be disputed, is the Labour Party was midwifed by the NLC. And then that led to a litigation, which they ended up with a consent judgment. A family for that Labour Party, more or less, is the parent body. The NLC is the parent body of the Labour Party. That is the owner of the Labour Party. But in real sense, that is also presents another problem, which is the issue of freedom of association, that there are so many people who have associated with Labour Party, who are not members of NLC or TUC in any form. So, therefore, the Labour Party is a broad-based umbrella. That's the position, the viewpoint of the abourism, unlike the position of the NLC, which says, look, we call the shots here. Now, what has led to the present crisis is the idea that is about the control of the party. We have people with different ideological bends within the Labour Party. In the first instance, the NLC that midwifed the Labour Party would love to see it as a mass-based approach party, providing mass-based solutions in the interest of the working class. Whereas many of those who moved in at a later stage, particularly before the last election, where people who did not necessarily share the ideological bends of NLC. So, therefore, the party presented even policies which NLC found itself down to be opposing. For instance, the issue of removal of subsidy, that was against what the NLCs took for the issue of commercialization and privatization, or public enterprises. NLCs strictly against the issue of the margin of the floating of the Naira. NLCs strictly against it. But then, these were also the policies sold by their own presidential candidates, the presidential candidates of the Labour Party, which they endorsed at that time, or they were complicit or they kept quiet about. So, that has now manifested itself in terms of the struggle to control the party. What the NLC, what the Labour Party agreed with the NLC is that there will be local government congresses state before the National Convention, where the national leadership is elected. The Aburi faction realized that this would not necessarily be in their own interest since the NLC is likely going to dominate at the world level, state level, local government level and state level. So, they decided to obviously go ahead and do the National Convention before doing the local government world and state elections. And that is the cross of the problem here. Is it by the control of the party organs at the state level, what level, local government level and at the national level? So, talking about the convention, there were reports that there were no representatives of the state level, the local government level, the national level. And then, the convention was just more like a sham, whereby Aburi was just trying to get his own vote in. What do you think about that? If they are having a national convention, is it not supposed to be for everyone, all members of the party, stakeholders involved, should it just be for some select few people just because they want to just get that vote in? Yes. What Aburi did, which I disagreed, is the idea that members of the party will not have any say right from the world level to the present to the national level. What they've simply done is they played the anxiety, the fear and anxiety amongst the state leadership to say that, look, you guys will be replaced by people favoured by NLC. So, because they have the majority of the voting population at certain levels. So, they decided that, look, why don't you endorse us to continue? And that's exactly what the chairman of the state chapters did, which forced the NLC now to order that those state chapters' offices should be taken over. And they argued because it served preservation, which is the rule applied by the Aburi-led bidashi, including at the state level. So, having done that, the NLC now decided to resist it. And that is why, what led to where we are today? So, what they have done, that they call the national convention, will not be recognized. The INEC refused to attend it, and also, not only because they changed the venue one time or the other, but simply because they have not held all the necessary congresses that should lead to the national convention. So, in this case, I think Aburi is wrong, is about self-preservation, wanting to remain after the end of his tenure, without any proper democratic endorsement, beyond assembling the yes men to come and say, yes, you can continue in office. And in return, the state chapter also will be allowed to continue in office. That is not internal party democracy. That is subverting internal party democracy in a way that has not led to the crisis in the liberal party. I just think that all of this could have been, you know, avoided if, you know, Aburi did what was necessary. And then, obviously, the other party members also just pulled their weight as well. But there was something that you mentioned which was talking about policies and saying, you know, the presidential candidate of the labor party, you know, talked about floating the Naira, removing the fuel subsidy and all of that. Should we have a political party whereby the presidential candidate doesn't even believe in maybe, or rather the NLC, for instance, doesn't believe in certain policies of the presidential candidate? Isn't that, you know, going against each other? Is that, is it supposed to work that way? Yeah, absolutely. You are correct. The problem we have is our parties are not ideological based. The closest to any ideological party in Nigeria today is the labor party. Again, when the opportunity presented itself, the NLC decided to be opportunistic. Obie is a phenomenon. Not that about that. Nobody can deny that. He has his own ardent followership called obedience. And they moved into the party with him. And the labor party benefited from that because we can see, you know, the results, going through the results, you know, for a labor party to achieve what they have achieved so far to the extent of even controlling a state led by Alexoti and then having representations at national level. They have done so very well, but you cannot take away the influence of Obie from that. He played a role. He attracted attention to the party and they have done very, very well. And I'm sure Obie himself is not happy about what is going on within the labor party currently because totally avoidable, you know, problem is what Aburi has presented, you know, to the party. And therefore, one is not sure what will happen subsequently later. It depends on how these issues are resolved. The idea that Obie will not leave the labor party for me is only saying that currently with a view to see whether they can resolve all their problems. If they are unable to resolve the problem and Obie is faced with the ideological opposition within the labor party itself, you know, the NLC is fighting for the soul of the labor party while also Obie is trying to remain within the labor party and build the party for the next election. If they can find a way out of this, eventually, they will have to part ways. And that is a major problem. And one of the solutions to it is for Aburi to leave. Is it Aburi will have to leave or agree that they should conduct the local government elections, world elections and state elections and a new national convention that will be attended, you know, by INE, because it is actually the state elections that should produce the delegates, you know, for national convention. That is not what Aburi did. He simply got the existing officials who in any case will be the beneficiary of what is going on. You know, to come and endorse him to continue in office. Well, I mean, like you said, avoidable problem has just been presented. Now, Peter Obie has come out to say in his words, he says, there is no such thing that is moving to another party. And he says, I'm for peace. I like peace. I believe where one people are concentration should be on peace. And I believe that we will resolve all situations. Now, talking about resolving all situations, do you think there might just be a chance that the crisis in the Labour Party would be resolved where all parties, you know, would be happy and not feel, you know, stifled if I can use that word or arm twisted into doing what they don't want. Maybe Julius Aburi doesn't want to leave or the NLC is saying you have to, can we, or rather can the Labour Party get to that place of resolution where all parties involved, you know, would just be happy with each other and have peace, like Peter Obie has said. Yes, in the first instance, we should not forget one thing, you know, that Obie said he will not leave the Labour Party. Yeah. If you go back into history, you have little or nothing to support that. Obie was in Africa. He found them back to the back there, but he ended up in PDP, from PDP to Labour Party. So there is no evidence to suggest that Obie will stay in Labour Party with the crisis, you know, ongoing in Labour Party. That's not to be said. Now, in terms of resolution of the problems within the Labour Party, I don't think Obie will leave if those problems are resolved. Now, there are two major issues. One is the control of the party, which the NLC is fighting to turn about, to say that, look, we must conduct relations right from workplace down to national level, whether that would be a setting to Aburi after the Sean National Convention, I don't know, because I know that Aburi has since gone to court. And what the problem now is to even try and resolve it, you know, one way or the other, will not present any problem, because there are some other cases in court also, the Arab and B faction and all that, some of them have been resolved, some have not. Now, in terms of the other challenge, which is the ideological one, in terms of the orientation of the Labour Party and its programs, there are supposed to be mass-based approach. That is, there are supposed to be a welfareist party. Obie does not necessarily share that vision. And that is where the major problem is. It's not just about the control of the party. It's the direction in which the NLC would love to see the Labour Party headed. That is, it should be a pro-working class party, coming up with a mass-based approach to solve problems, rather than a capitalist solution to problems. So there's a kind of ideological conflict somewhere there. So whether that will be resolved or not, I don't know, because for me, it seems it's a party of strange bad fellows. You cannot have the NLC meet wife in a political party, and then you now end off having to be who, in any case, will stand in opposition to the ideological orientation of NLC, being the presidential candidate. They tolerated each other before the last election simply because of the need to grab power, to get elected. And the Labour Party that has benefited and will be influenced within that party, also the NLC's influence within that party. So the issue is to find an amicable resolution, one the power issue can easily be resolved. But what about the ideological issue? Because Peter Obie and his sub-media movement share a different ideological perspective to the NLC's ideological perspective. That is where I think the major problem will lie. Speaking about ideological perspectives, that was just a tongue twister. So if you look at other nations, for instance, the United States of America, you see that they have Republicans, they have Democrats. And those parties are geared towards certain ideologies, certain policies, this is what they believe in. So if you join in such parties, you definitely know that my ideologies, I'm joining this because we are in tandem. Our ideologies are together, they are aligned. But why do we have political parties first, a lot in Nigeria? And then the ones that you can just go there just because I can. So you can see someone moving from PDP, for instance, in fact, just in a river state, a lot of about 27 members of the of the House of Assembly, you know, had moved from PDP, right? So they can just decamp regardless of what their ideologies are. Shouldn't we start to look at ideological based parties instead of just forming parties just for the name of it? Absolutely, I completely agree with you. I think the last attempt to have an ideological party in Nigeria, ideological based parties in Nigeria, was when, I think, when they formed two political parties, or is it Abasha, one to the, a little to the left, a little to the right, I think is Abasha, the, when he wanted to transmute himself, you have the National Republican Convention, and no, it's an IBB, and then the SDP, Social Democratic Party. So that was the last attempt to have ideological based political parties in Nigeria. But in terms of how our parties have evolved currently, we found ourselves in a situation where most, if not all, the parties lack any ideological focus or orientation. So consequently, that has led to what, or the promotion of what is called political prostitution, that is, you can sleep, you know, in PDP in the morning, you know, get up and have your lunch in APC, and then you have your dinner in labor party in the night, only to wake up in the morning in show rest party. You know, that is what we have currently, and that is what is called, you know, political prostitution. So it's convenient for Nigerian ruling class simply because they are able to hedge their bets. Many of those parties were actually formed by them using their cronies. So if they disagree with their own political party on choice of representation, they can easily move to another political party and then, you know, represent themselves, you know, for re-election. So that is why they've been doing that. It's about political prostitution and it's about one thing to hold on to power. That is what we have currently going on. When you look at people like Appabio, where was Appabio? Appabio was a PDP governor. Where did he end up? He's now the Senate president in APC. And he's not the only one. There are so many people like that. You remember the issue of the Swaraki and others, you know, the Swaraki and his group of five people, when they left the PDP, they formed a new party called the UPDP and then ended up in alliance with APC. So it's lack of principles on the path of our political leaders, lack of ideological orientation in our political parties that has created the situation where political prostitution thrives. And of course, it only suits the interest of politicians, but not necessarily the interest of Nigerians. So what's the way forward now for the Labour Party and, you know, the issues with the NLC as we wrap up? The way forward is very clear. The issue of power is easily resolved. I'm sure Aburibu would eventually agree that they should have all the world, the parliament and state congresses. That can easily be resolved through that. And then they can ease out Aburibu. But that will not end the problem. That will only solve the problem for the time being. But the issue of ideology, it would be the major problem. Those who think the whom the Labour Party, particularly the NLC, would want to influence the perspective of whoever or would prefer somebody who shares their perspective to be the next presidential candidate. I cannot see UB being the next presidential candidate of Labour Party. Once the chips are down, I'm sure UB will decide to move somewhere else, not necessarily because it doesn't want to meet the Labour Party, but strictly because of the ideological divide within the Labour Party. So in the next one year, we'll see how these things will be more likely to be, will eventually, you know, leave them, feel frustrated and leave the Labour Party. It continues this way. All right, I want to say thank you for coming. It was lovely having a conversation with you regarding the issues with the Labour Party and the NLC and where Peter Olby stands as well. I want to say thank you. Thank you for coming. Thank you for everything. All right, we've been speaking with Bia doing show on me as a political analyst and we've just been talking about Peter Olby's response to the NLC saying he's not leaving Labour Party. We'll go on a short break and when we return, we'll be looking at our next hot topic. This talks about autism in Nigeria. Please stay with us.