State chairmen of the Labour Party (LP) have withdrawn their support for presidential candidate of the party, Peter Obi with less than 48 hours to Saturday’s poll.
According to them, Obi is guilty of a blatant disregard and remorseless neglect of the 36 State chairmen while running his campaign and molibisation activities.
They accused Obi of contempt of the role of the 36 state chapters’ leadership, adding that Obi will rather choose to work with cronies and support groups.
Relaying this to newsmen in Abuja on Thursday was the Gombe State LP chairman and co-ordinating chairman for the 36 States, Sani Abdulsalam.
He was accompanied by the national vice chairman (North East), Mohammed Alkali and the Yobe State chairman, Ibrahim Bukar, amongst others.
Abdulsalam said: “I speak on behalf of 36 state Chairmen of our party in my capacity as the Coordinating Chairman.
“We have never been respected by the party leadership and also our presidential candidate has no respect for our party executives at state levels because Peter Obi deliberately mismanaged our goodwill with the imposition of his members and other support groups that decamped with him in May 2022 to our party.
“Of note, Wednesday, February 22, 2023, was the meeting we had with the National Chairman in the party head office where a discussion was held about the logistics support for state chapters and National officers towards effective Mobilisation of our members for the presidential and National Assembly election on Saturday, February 25, 2023
“To our surprise, the National Chairman said the Presidential candidate has no confidence in all the 36 state chapters’ leadership but would rather choose to work with their cronies and support group that came with him.
“The greatest shock from the National Chairman was that money for agents will not be sent to any State Chairman or National officers except those three NWC members including a woman and that all state Chairmen and 19 other members already picked by Mr Peter Obi himself will be given monies meant for party agents and an alert will be received by 10 pm tonight Wednesday, February 22, 2023.
“As of now, no alert has been received by any State Chairmen and information reaching us confirmed that money was paid based on ethnic and religious consideration because only persons of a particular ethnic group currently run the campaign of Mr Peter Obi in cohort with the National Chairman, has polluted the party.
“As members of the Labour Party National Executive and National Working Committee, it is our considered opinion and informed conclusion that Peter Obi cannot win this election since all party executives have been sidelined. He is not ready and is grossly ill-prepared for the Presidential race.