Nollywood actor and former Labour Party (LP) presidential campaign spokesperson Kenneth Okonkwo has accused Peter Obi of betrayal amid the party’s internal crisis.
In a recent interview with Symfoni, Okonkwo, who left the LP in February 2025, said Obi disregarded his advice and aligned with the Julius Abure-led faction — a move he described as a personal betrayal.
“Any politician that knows what he’s doing cannot be betrayed by another. If there is anybody that betrayed the other, I can say it emphatically that Peter Obi betrayed me,” Okonkwo said.
He claimed Obi was misled by LP executives who falsely told him the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had recognised their faction. Despite Okonkwo’s warning, Obi returned to support them.
“The Julius Abure-led LP members lied to Obi that the Independent National Electoral Commission had accepted them, and Obi surreptitiously went back to them,” Okonkwo said.
“But I told him, ‘Sir, you have made a public statement on integrity, and even if INEC has accepted them, that is not a criterion for you to go back and start dealing with them because they have shown that they are not democratic. If you go back to them, they will destroy your political career, and everything you have said about integrity will die.’”
Okonkwo said he privately advised Obi not to associate with the group, whom he described as “agents in the hands of the government to destabilise him.”
“Thereafter, I called all the people that were in the inner circle and told them the same thing about what Obi was trying to do. I told them he wanted to go back with the Abure people, and if he did, I wouldn’t go back with him because I do not swallow back my words.”
He said Obi later visited the Abure-led LP secretariat and endorsed them publicly, shocking him. Okonkwo added that members of the faction sent him the video to mock him.
“And after saying all those things, within, like, 72 hours, Obi went back to Abure’s office to publicly endorse them, and while he was there talking to them, one of the leaders in that executive sent me the video to mock me that the person I was fighting for against them has come to their office to endorse them.”
“It was when INEC dissociated itself from Abure that Obi came out to start acting neutral, but I told him he could not be neutral and something had to be done,” he added.
