Doyin Okupe, a former Director-General of the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council, has made a striking revelation, disclosing that neither he nor Peter Obi, the party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 general election, aligned with the ideologies of the Labour Party.
Okupe stated this during an interview with a media outlet on Tuesday.
According to him, the Labour Party served merely as a vehicle for their presidential bid, with their membership ending following Obi’s electoral defeat.
“The LP for us — for Peter Obi and I — and those in the leadership of the movement, the party was a special purpose vehicle.”
Okupe, while stressing the pragmatic approach him and Obi undertook, expressed hope for a consensus had they won, highlighting their willingness to navigate between ideological spectrums.
“I have never been a Labour person, I have never operated on the left before but we needed a platform and this was the only platform readily available to us.
“We thought that if we won the election, there are no fast and hard rules about ideologies. You can always find a shade between the left and the right. You can always move to the centre.
“We were hoping and praying that if we won we would find a way to come to some consensus with the Labour.
“Peter Obi is not a Labour person. He is not a leftist person, he is a trader, he is a businessman just like me. I am a liberal democrat, I believe in liberal democracy, I believe in free enterprise,” he added.