Labour Party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has urged his supporters to vote for the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in Saturday’s bye-elections taking place across 16 states.
In a post on his official X handle on Thursday, August 14, Obi explained that his appeal was necessitated by the Labour Party’s absence from the ballot, a result of its prolonged internal leadership crisis.
“On the 16th of August 2025, Nigerians will go to the polling units again for the bye-elections,” Obi wrote. “This is expected to take place in the 16 states of the federation with two senatorial, five federal House of Representatives and nine state assembly seats available for voting.”
He added: “Kindly note that because the Labour Party has no recognised candidates by INEC due to the internal crisis, I humbly urge every member of Obidient and COPDEM families to go out and vote for the coalition political party, African Democratic Congress (ADC), in their respective states. The struggle for Nigeria has started.”
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had earlier announced that the polls would be conducted in constituencies where vacancies arose from deaths, resignations, or court rulings.
However, Obi’s position has sparked a sharp rebuttal from the factional leadership of the Labour Party. In a statement signed by its National Chairman, Barr. Julius Abure, the party described the former presidential candidate’s comments as “misleading, mischievous and delusional,” insisting that Labour Party candidates are duly recognised and will be on the ballot.
“The attention of the leadership of the Labour Party has been drawn to a statement by the party’s former presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, directing party members to cast their votes for another party in the August 16, 2025 bye-election,” the statement read. “The party is however calling on all our faithful party members to ignore this malicious directive and go ahead with casting of their votes for the Labour Party and their candidates.”
Abure accused Obi of being “an irony and a paradox in the Nigerian political space,” alleging that he had “elevated subterfuge in the game of politics” and become “an Uber politician, not willing to take a position and stand by his decision.”
According to him, “He has now booked a place for himself in the Guinness Book of Records as a person affiliated to many political parties pari pasu, all in his desperation to preside over Nigeria.”
The statement further alleged that Obi was instrumental in fuelling the Labour Party’s crisis, using it as justification for his latest political stance.
“Nigerians should not forget in a hurry that it was Peter Obi that created the crisis in the Labour Party. He has also co-funded the crisis all these while and went as far as leading a protest march to INEC headquarters against his own party,” Abure claimed.
He added that Obi lacked “the competence, character and capacity to actualise the vision of a new Nigeria,” accusing him of repaying the goodwill shown to him by the party “with evil.”
Abure maintained that despite Obi’s opposition, the Labour Party would “participate fully” in the elections.
“What Obi does not know is that Labour Party is on the ballot and our candidates are contesting the election in spite of all his efforts to strangulate the Labour Party,” he said.
