By 247ureports.com
Lawyer and commentator Ekene Aninze has said Julius Abure, the former Labour Party national chairman, must be wondering what might have been as he watches Senator Seriake Dickson build the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) into a functioning machine for Peter Obi, in a post that answers Abure’s recent comments rejecting Obi’s 2027 bid.
Aninze compares the two preparation periods in his post. The NDC, he says, has only 242 days to prepare Obi for the January 2027 election, while Abure had 274 days before the 2023 election and still failed to set up a proper presidential campaign council. He says the Labour Party also lacked polling unit agents in most states, and accuses Abure of caring more about the fame of the “Obi Tsunami” and about entrenching himself as national chairman. “I believe that today, he is watching Senator Dickson deploy his influence, experience and expertise to do the very job he struggled to accomplish,” he writes, adding that the NDC has built a structure “that looks like that of a party that has existed for years, all within a few months.” He says Abure is now “neither firmly established in the Labour Party nor in the APC, with his political options appearing increasingly limited,” and closes with “Whatever a man sows, he reaps.” The day counts, the account of Labour’s campaign and the claims about Abure’s motives are the writer’s own and 247ureports.com has not verified them.
The post follows remarks by Abure on November 2, in which he ruled out supporting Obi, saying he would not back the NDC because Obi squandered the goodwill he enjoyed in 2023. Abure said he could still support Tinubu or Atiku Abubakar, depending on the outcome of a pending Supreme Court case over the Labour Party’s leadership, his political interests and ideology, and the candidate’s acceptability. He predicted Obi would do worse than in 2023, saying his departure cost him the organisation that helped him win more than six million votes, and said Obi would find less freedom in the NDC than he enjoyed in the Labour Party because Dickson is firmly in charge. He had earlier accused Obi and his supporters of trying to take over the Labour Party, a charge Obi’s camp has denied.
The NDC’s campaign spokesperson, Constance Ikokwu, said the party wishes Abure “good luck in his new ventures,” and Obi’s media aide, Idris Zekeri, said the party had moved on from Abure and that his stance reflects personal grievances rather than the national interest.
Abure’s standing is contested. A Federal High Court in Abuja ruled in January that his tenure as national chairman had expired and ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to recognise a caretaker committee led by Senator Nenadi Usman, a position the Court of Appeal upheld in April while imposing N10 million in costs on him for abuse of process. INEC recognises Usman’s leadership, and Abure, who is described as the factional chairman, is pursuing the matter at the Supreme Court. He has not said he has joined another party.
