Julius Abure, the National Chairman of the Labour Party, has declared that the party has no strongholds because Nigerians, in general, are its strongholds ahead of the 2023 general election.
Abure stated that the Labour Party’s strongholds are its oppressed, downtrodden, and denied education and health care supporters.
WITHIN NIGERIA, Abure told Punch that the Labour Party has support from people all over the country, north and south because people are no longer playing tribal and ethnic politics.
He did, however, admit that the party receives more support from the south and that the average Nigerian voter is more informed than people believe.
According to him, hunger knows no tribe, and those in the North do not buy garri at a lower price than those in the South, citing that the number of out-of-school children in the North today exceeds that of the South.
He advanced the argument that politics in Nigeria today are not about where you come from and that politicians have used ethnic and tribal divides in the past, but that this would change in 2023.
Abure explained to Punch that;
Well, our strong base is generally the people of Nigeria. Our strongest supporters are the oppressed, the downtrodden, and those who have been denied education and health care.
Across the country, whether in the North or the South, we enjoy a lot of support from the people. But you may be right to say that we have more support from the South but we enjoy support generally from across the country because people try to bring tribalism and ethnicity into all of this, but it is no longer standing because the average voter today is more enlightened than we thought they were, and today it’s just not an issue of ethnicity.
Like Peter Obi would say, and as I have always emphasised, those in the North do not buy garri cheaper than those from the South. Hunger knows no tribe. Today, the number of out-of-school children is higher in the North than even in the South. When President Goodluck Jonathan was in office, he created Almajiri schools and removed Almajiris from the streets. He wasn’t a Muslim. He wasn’t from the North. But he did all of that.
“At this point, it is not about where you are from though the political oligarchy in Nigeria has been using ethnicity and tribalism to create a divide to continue to remain in office. I think that is coming to an end in 2023, and those are the issues that we have discussed to say that the 2023 election is not about where you are coming from.”
WITHIN NIGERIA also gathered that while speaking about the recent attack on the party’s flag bearer, Peter Obi, by the Anambra State Governor Charles Soludo, the Labour Party chair observed that;
The opinion of Governor Charles Soludo is a minority opinion and should be treated with a pinch of salt. He’s not speaking the mind of Anambra. It is a minority and myopic point of view, and the people of Anambra — even without consulting them — can say clearly that it is not a popular opinion, and that’s why I’m saying that.
By the time we take our campaigns to Anambra State, which will be very soon because of his comment, Anambra State will be the state that we take our campaigns to so that we can test our popularity and see who owns the land. My candid advice to him is that he should tone down his comments because he would be destroying his future and himself if he continued along these lines.
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