The Labour Party has reacted to the proposal of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar who on Tuesday called on other opposition parties to merge to defeat the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2027.
Atiku, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the February 2023 presidential election, had raised concerns that Nigeria was moving towards a “one-party dictatorship” state.
He made the call in Abuja on Tuesday when he hosted the national executive committee of the Inter-Party Advisory Council Nigeria (IPAC) led by its national president, Yabagi Sani.
He said “We have all seen how the APC is increasingly turning Nigeria into a dictatorship of one party. If we don’t come together to challenge what the ruling party is trying to create, our democracy will suffer for it, and the consequences of it will affect the generations yet unborn,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Labour Party (LP) in its response said it has no plan to merge with the PDP to dislodge the ruling APC in the 2027 general elections.
LP rose to third force with its performance in the last general election.
LP spokesman, Obiora Ifoh, in a statement on Thursday, said his party just concluded the 2023 presidential election episode and a post-mortem was yet to be held.
Ifoh said the way forward for the party has not been discussed and “when we do, Nigerians will be properly informed”.
The Labour Party said Atiku’s call “was only a proposal and every Nigerian should be interested in making democracy work in Nigeria and that what we have presently is an autocracy”.
“There was nowhere in the response that the purported merger between LP and PDP was mentioned,” Ifoh emphasised.
Recall that APC while reacting to the former Vice President, said Atiku “appears to be under the influence of a distorted vision inflicted by the debilitating serial trouncing of his party at the polls. ”
