Kenneth Okonkwo, a former spokesman for the Labour Party’s Peter Obi Presidential Campaign Council, asserted that Mr. Julius Abure and his “so-called National Executive Committee members” should be apprehended by security services, stating that their terms had long since ended.
In a video interview with SYMFONI that was posted on YouTube on Thursday, Okonkwo, a lawyer, called the alleged convention that Abure and his associates held in Nnewi, Anambra State, a sham because it didn’t adhere to the legal requirements.
He called them a group of criminals and blamed Mr Peter Obi, the party’s presidential candidate in the general election of 2023, for even going to the party secretariat, implying that he had backed them and everything.
The renowned actor bemoaned the decay within the party, claiming that despite having served as the party’s presidential spokesperson, he was unaware of the alleged convention until he came across a leaked letter to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on social media.
He questioned the decision made by Abure and his allies to hold a party convention in secret and avoid media coverage, all the while rebranding themselves as the LP’s National Working Committee (NWC).
He said, “Abure’s tenure has expired a long time ago. What is this month? If it is this month why did he go to organise a fake national convention and swear himself in? Which month again? That means he terminated his tenure before expiration. Has the Labour Party advertised in any media that they are having a convention? I am and I was a spokesperson at the presidential level and I did not know that my party was having a convention. That must be a ‘Voodoo convention’.
“When I saw it in the social media by leak letter they wrote to INEC, I was the one who called them because I thought it was fake. I say sir what is going on – it is Umuahia today they will reject them in Umuahia because it is a leprosy convention, you don’t accept leprosy convention, they will run to Edo, Edo will reject them they will run to Anambra… What is done like that? A national party that more than 6 million persons voted for and they went and the next thing we heard and saw was where they were raising their hands that they had been sworn in.
“Have you ever seen in any party where the whole NWC members were returned? Nobody contested even one position. It is simply a joke and they don’t even have the shame to come out to say they did convention. You wouldn’t see anybody there voting or who votes. Gang of criminals and you don’t have shame to come out to say you did national convention. What are you going to tell over 6 million persons that voted for you? The whole members, people wanting to come in you want to tell them that they wouldn’t even have the right to choose who their leaders are and you want them to join your party? You are a joker.
“Those people; they are clowns. Greatest joke I have ever seen in any political party and then you want to position yourself as a party of integrity. You don’t give what you don’t have. Abure and cohort their tenure is over. Are you calling me to support what I don’t know? Do you call me to even tell me you are going to have a national convention? So what will I tell people? Jesus Christ will say on judgement day, get behind me you worker of iniquity, I don’t know you.
“Let Julius Abure and all his cohorts get behind me; they are workers of iniquity I don’t know them. They did not even allow the journalists to come in when they were doing the so-called convention that is a secret society. The executive they are now in charge of is a secret society. They should be apprehended so that they will tell the world what they did in that place because party politics is supposed to be an open and transparent thing everybody is supposed to be there.
“The world is supposed to be seeing what you are doing. That is what the constitution said, internal democracy. That is what INEC will do, if Inec recognises Abure and all those things then know that they collected money to do it. Because they said if you don’t give INEC notice it is invalid, that is the law in Section 82.”
“Because Peter Obi when he was talking did not use the word “I have come to endorse this person.” I did not hear it. That does not mean in any way that I am supporting that he ever put his leg there because even the body language of a leader matters. It was not right that he should even step his leg there. Because when you get in there and probably he went there alone they have the right to come say anything they want and because of that evidence that you were there it will now be you struggling to explain yourself.”
