Kenneth Okonkwo: LP leadership a bunch of clowns… I can’t rule out decamping

Kenneth Okonkwo, a chieftain of the Labour Party (LP), says he is not impressed by recent developments in the party.

Okonkwo, who was a presidential campaign spokesperson for the party in the 2023 election, described the LP as “a secret society led by a group of clowns”.

He added that the party lacks the integrity to take advantage of the internal crisis in other parties.

The LP has been embroiled in a leadership crisis since Lamidi Apapa, deputy national chairman of the party (south), declared himself the acting national chairman last year.

The crisis deepened in 2024 when a national convention of the party in Anambra saw Julius Abure re-elected as chairman of the party amid opposition from a faction of the party.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had said it did not monitor the LP’s national convention.

The Board of Trustees (BoT) of the party described the convention that re-elected Abure as a charade and added that Abure’s tenure was over as national chairman of the party.

Speaking in an interview on Symfoni, a news platform, Okonkwo said he will not rule out rejoining another party if the LP continues on a “trajectory where they cannot even hold an acceptable national convention”.

“Any party that is not visibly committed to the welfare of Nigerians will most likely not see me there. I don’t rule out going back to anything because change is constant,” he said.

“My own labour party is not impressing me. Assuming they continue on this trajectory where they cannot even hold an acceptable national convention, then you’d tell me I’d be there?

“I was a spokesperson at the presidential level and I did not know that the Labour Party was having a convention. When I saw it on social media, I thought it was fake. They were rejected in Umuahia because it was a leprous convention.

“Those people are clowns. It is the greatest joke I have ever seen in a political party and then you want to position yourself as a party of integrity. You cannot give what you don’t have. 

“Aburi and his cohorts, their tenure is over. Let Aburi and his cohorts get behind me. They are workers of iniquity. I don’t rate them. That executive is in charge of the secret society. They should be apprehended.”

The Nollywood actor cum politician dumped the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2022, citing the party’s adoption of a Muslim-Muslim ticket for the 2023 presidential election.

A month later, he joined the LP and promised to help in actualising the presidential bid of Peter Obi, former governor of Anambra.