The Labour Party on Sunday voiced its displeasure over the conduct of a former member, Val Ozigbo, whom it said was now desperately attempting to reassert his relevance in the party.
Ozigbo is believed to be interested in contesting this year’s Anambra State governorship election on the platform of the LP.
However, the party warned him and other politicians planning to join the LP for pecuniary reasons to seek elsewhere.
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The party, in a statement by the National Publicity Secretary, Mr Obiora Ifoh, argued that Ozigbo’s reason for leaving the LP in the first place was not due to the party’s national convention or defections, as he wanted people to believe, but rather because Ozigbo could not win the party’s governorship ticket when he made a bid for it during the last poll.
It noted that abandoning the LP midway during the last electioneering followed a pattern Ozigbo was known for, as he would always leave once his plans failed to succeed.
The LP urged Ozigbo to quit any plot to serve as a destructive agent of the party.
Part of the lengthy statement reads, “The attention of the leadership of the Labour Party has been drawn to interviews granted to some national televisions by one Val Ozigbo, though until recently a nominal member of the Labour Party but a familiar face in the Peter Obi Campaign Council wherein he made serious attempts to demarket our party in his attention-seeking antics.
“As a party, we rarely respond to media attacks by individuals who for political reasons create some aura of importance around their persons but in actual fact, are liabilities to both the party they belong to and also to their constituents. But for Val Ozigbo, the Labour Party views his present pitiable position as quite unfortunate and can only advise him that no one gets into a position of power through betrayal and desperation.
“It is a fact that Val Ozigbo contested the Anambra governorship election in 2021 under PDP and woefully lost to an APGA candidate. In that election, he sought and got huge support, both financial and moral, from many Nigerians, many of whom he has now shamelessly denied.
“When he joined the Labour Party after the emergence of our presidential candidate in 2022, his mission was very clear: to work for the candidate. He tagged along the campaign without adding any value whatsoever to the campaign, hoping to earn some popularity with his closeness to the candidate. Today, Ozigbo has shown his real character and he is even claiming that his association with the Obidient family was a disservice to his political ambition.
“Let me at this point reveal real reasons why Val Ozigbo left Labour Party. Though he cited the party’s national convention and defections, it is a known fact that the issue of the national convention held in Nnewi, Anambra State, has been clearly and decidedly addressed by the courts in favour of the incumbent executive. Also, defection is a national malaise affecting all the major political parties, and these defections are being challenged in the courts.
“The truth is that Val Ozigbo would rather contest election in a political party where he hopes to be rewarded by the government in power when he loses election. It is a fact that he has been financially challenged after the 2021 election, and he is desperately in need of resuscitation himself. It is obvious that Mr. Ozigbo has neither the interest of the nation nor Anambra State as he claimed; rather his interest is clearly pecuniary.
“Unfortunately for him, virtually every political party in Nigeria knows his trajectory in politics, and his character of joining a political party few months to the governorship election, buy the candidacy, block other more focused aspirants, waste the slot and dump the party without qualms. We advise Mr. Ozigbo that the parties have since learnt that they can never be used again as Special Purpose Vehicles by desperate politicians whose only interest is to seek personal glory and dump them at the end of the day.
“In the case of the Labour Party, he had thought that his fake fraternity with the Presidential candidate will earn him the candidacy unopposed but he was disappointed by the leadership of the party in his ward and state who confronted him with the facts of his non-support of the party. Val Ozigbo in his entire membership of the Labour Party, never supported the party, even in his polling unit.
“Every politics is local, but to him, endorsement from the top is all that matters. It will interest you to know that in the 2023 presidential election, the Labour Party lost the polling unit in front of Ozigbo’s residence. It tells you how weightless Ozigbo is politically. I doubt if any serious political party will toy with his candidacy in the coming Anambra governorship election.
“The party of course, reminded him very clearly during the July 2024 Anambra State Congress, where all his nominees were flatly rejected in a free and fair contest. The very embarrassed Val Ozigbo read the handwriting on the wall and that pushed him to rebel against the party leadership. Unknown to many, Mr. Ozigbo actually left LP in July 2024 after that disgraceful outing. Obviously aware that he has been ostracised politically, he quickly joined in stoking the crisis in the party leadership, which he is now citing as one of the reasons he left the Labour Party.
“We want to also advise him that being a destructive agent against a party that once offered him a platform to achieve his political aspirations can be cruel and hardly a way to go in politics and the consequence of which can be disastrous. His adversarial critique of the party is not just infantile but has also gone further in diminishing his already frustrated personality.
“Politics is all about competition. You cannot attain any position in the struggle for power if you are afraid to compete. Probably, the quality of aspirants in the Labour Party in the Anambra State governorship race and low confidence in himself may possibly be another reason why he took the sudden flight from the party but we still wish him well in his future political engagements.”
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