2023: Proposed Labour Party alliance with NNPP collapse, Obi set to announce substantive VP

The alliance talks between the Labour Party and the New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP, has come to nought, as the Vice Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, Doyin Okupe, has disclosed that a substantive vice to Peter Obi, the party’s flag bearer, would be announced before Friday.

Okupe added that the alliance talks with the Rabiu Kwankwaso-led NNPP ended about four weeks ago.

According to him, the VP to be announced would come from the North and would be responsible for deepening the party in that part of the country.

“This matter (Vice Presidential candidate) will be concluded between tomorrow (Wednesday) and Friday. We are looking for a vibrant, able politician from the northern extraction. The person must have a measure of intellect and sound educational background,” Okupe said.

According to the one-time presidential aide, the alliance talk with NNPP is a forgotten issue, saying: “Those discussions about merger, alliance and all that—was led by me from our side, and it is dead.”

Okupe stated that the Labour Party is sure of victory against the ruling APC and the main opposition PDP, adding that Obi’s candidacy was a phenomenon that had not been witnessed in Nigeria.

Kwankwaso, the presidential candidate of the NNPP, had said northerners would not vote for a non-northerner and, therefore, urged Obi to be his running mate, citing separatist agitations in the South-east where Obi hails from as a minus for the Labour Party flag bearer.

He noted that the Igbo are well talented and good businessmen but not good politicians.

Expectations had been high that an alliance between the NNPP, which is stronger in North, especially the North-west, and the LP, which is stronger in South, particularly among young people, would have caused an upset in the 2023 presidential election. However, with the reported collapse of the alliance talks, all that hope may have fizzled out.