Kenneth Okonkwo, former spokesperson of the Labour Party’s presidential campaign, says Nigeria’s main opposition platforms, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP), have ceased to exist in any real political sense.
Speaking on Channels TV’s The Morning Brief on Friday, September 5, Okonkwo argued that both parties are now shells of themselves, with many of their leaders openly backing other political camps.
He contrasted their decline with recent moves in the African Democratic Congress (ADC), which he described as an example of a party becoming stronger rather than weaker.
“You see what happened with ADC is a novel thing. It has not happened before in Nigeria, so I understand why people mistake a whole lot of things.
“This is the first time in Nigeria, the national executive of a political party, you know, resign and allowed a new executive party to take over on their own,” he said.
According to him, the coalition that ushered in the ADC’s new leadership was not a loose alliance but a total absorption into one party.
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“So a coalition simply means alliance to work together for a purpose, chose the party to use as their party henceforth. So it’s not a merger.
“The coalition is now dissolved into a political party – it is not now like a coalition that political parties, are going to work together. No, they have now dissolved into a political party,” Okonkwo explained.
Turning to the PDP and LP, he dismissed their relevance, saying their structures now exist “only on paper.”
“Well, basically, strictly speaking, there is no more any party like PDP or LP. They are just existing papers because whoever is in PDP is either supporting APC or ADC.
“That’s what it is. If the leaders of PDP have come out openly to say they are supporting the presidential candidate of another political party, that’s the end of the party, two years before the time of the election.
“So strictly speaking, there is no party except on paper, and parties are meant to be for the people,” he said.