Labour Party May End Up Like APGA, A Failed Experiment
By Fredrick Nwabufo
It may just be a bubble. A phantasm. An ignis fatuus. A castle on quicksand. It may not take long before the house caves in. The Labour Party electoral rendition is a thrilling experiment of what could be; of political possibilities, of change, but it appears the party is doomed to crumple under the weight of its own afflictions and internal contradictions.
The Labour Party has won 40 national assembly seats so far — according to records by INEC. Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the party, put up a notable performance in the presidential election, though there are disputations over votes from the states he won as there are allegations that they were ballooned in his favour.
the times and evolving accordingly, APGA was closed and straitjacketed.
APGA lost its oomph and quickly took on the brand of a sectional party. The dream of the revered Igbo leader, Odumegwu Ojukwu, was for the party to become a national brolly – a stamping ground for all Nigerians. To build from the base and levitate to the centre. But the party failed to realise this dream. It was racked by internecine squabbles, greed, lack of foresight by subsequent managers, insularity, and sabotage.
The Labour Party appears uninoculated against the APGA contagion. The party is becoming rigidly ethnicised. Ethnic irredentists have seized the party, branding it after themselves – recreating it in their own image. Some of these irredentists who take up residence on social media are quick to establish they ‘’own’’ the Labour Party, shutting out divergent interrogations.
Even Aisha Yesufu, a prominent voice of the Obi campaign, was not spared of the noxious epithet by these sudden appropriators of the Labour Party. She was reminded, ‘’you are not one of us’’ – despite her immense support for their candidate.
These appropriators of the Labour Party should take the pain to study the ethos of their party. It is conventionally a workers’ party. But I guess, anger and bigotry drive anti-intellectualism. There is no place for bigotry in an intellectually fecundated mind.
I am of the view that this new-fangled mob is a latent threat to our democracy. Our conversations on politics have never been this contaminated. In reality, this problem stretches beyond the Labour Party mob. But I would advise those who care to listen to desist from spreading poison and freely trading bigotry.
There is no trophy, but damnation for being a loud-mouthed bigot.
By Fredrick Nwabufo, Nwabufo aka Mr OneNigeria is a media executive.
