Nollywood actor cum politician, Kenneth Okonkwo has taken a swipe at the National Chairman of the Labour Party, Julis Abure, referring to him as a person who lacks integrity.
Okonkwo who was a spokesperson for the party during the 2023 elections stated that he cannot rule out decamping to another political party if the Labour Party (LP) continues on a “trajectory where they cannot even hold an acceptable national convention.”
During a recent interaction with the media, he characterized the LP as “a clandestine organization governed by a bunch of clowns”.
He expressed his dissatisfaction with the recent happenings within his party.
Okonkwo regretted that the LP lacked integrity to exploit the internal turmoil of other political parties.
The LP chieftain has found itself in the midst of leadership turmoil since Lamidi Apapa, the deputy national chairman of the party (south), announced himself as the interim national chairman last year.
The situation escalated in 2024 during a national convention in Anambra, where Julius Abure was elected as the party’s chairman despite facing resistance from a section of the party.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has indicated that it did not oversee the LP’s national convention.
The Board of Trustees (BoT) of the party labelled the convention that elected Abure as a sham and stated that Abure’s role as national chairman was temporary.
Speaking during a recent interview, Okonkwo mentioned that he was open to joining another party if the LP continues on a path where it cannot even conduct a respectable national convention.
He further called for Abure’s arrest saying he and his cohorts should be apprehended.
Okonkwo said: “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.
“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.
“Abure and his cohorts, their tenure is over. Let Abure 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.”
Recall that Okonkwo 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.
