Former National Chairman of the Labour Party, Julius Abure, has accused former presidential candidate Peter Obi and Abia State Governor Alex Otti of contributing to the internal crisis that rocked the party after the 2023 general elections.…....
Abure made the remarks in a video released by News Central TV on Monday, May 18, 2026, where he reflected on the leadership challenges within the Labour Party and the disagreements that emerged after the party’s electoral successes.
According to him, the party was able to remain united during the election period because of the leadership structure he provided at the time. “It’s not as if we wouldn’t have had a crisis, but I provided leadership to the party that kept it together,” Abure said.
He, however, alleged that tensions within the party intensified after the elections when some elected officials and party members began looking up to Peter Obi as the central figure in the party.
“But after the general election, some people now deferred to him. Some people who won the election, some people who saw him as the leader of the party, started going to him. And that’s when the crisis in the party started,” he stated.
Abure further suggested that Obi may not have fully understood the political forces at play at the time, alleging that certain individuals were already working against the party from within. “Probably he didn’t know too, that probably some powers had been, let me put it that way, were also out to destroy the party,” he said.
The former Labour Party chairman directly accused Obi of aligning with Governor Alex Otti in ways that allegedly weakened the party’s internal structure. “He naively followed the governor of Abia state to destroy the party,” Abure alleged.
Despite the criticism, Abure said he believed Obi might privately regret how events unfolded within the party, even if he does not publicly admit it. “And today, I want to believe that even if Peter Obi doesn’t comes out to say that he regrets what happened in Labour Party, I’m sure he will regrets it. He may not fully admit it, but I want to say clearly that he didn’t manage the crisis in the party,” he stated.
Abure also faulted Obi’s approach to handling political disagreements, arguing that leadership within a political party requires the ability to confront and resolve crises rather than avoid them. “He didn’t provide leadership in the party. He didn’t manage it well. And this is where some people are now asking questions,” he said.
Referring to previous remarks allegedly made by Obi about avoiding troubled environments, Abure argued that politics naturally involves disagreements, competing interests, and controversies.
“That if you run away from crisis, like he said himself, that anywhere there is trouble, he runs away from it, then politics is not for you. Because politics is about controversy, it’s about crisis, it’s about disagreement,” Abure stated.
He further maintained that political leadership requires balancing the various interests within a party structure. “Because it’s an organization, or political party, or even police, an organization where there are varied interests. And as a leader of the party, you have a responsibility to apportion those appropriate, apportion those interests,” he added.