Valentine Ozigbo, one of the strongest supporters of Peter Obi, Presidential Candidate of Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 elections, has said the party will soon be hit by a wave of defections.
Speaking on Arise TV, Ozigbo, who has defected to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), said the LP is no longer what people see on the outside, adding that the party would soon become history.
According to the one-time Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the Anambra 2021 governorship election, some elected LP officials have confided in him that they are planning to dump the party.
The governorship aspirant said he joined the APC to serve as a “catalyst of change” in the party.
“LP is not exactly what people think they are seeing. I have made my case. Unfortunately, LP is almost in its dying days and over time people are going to see it,” he said.
“You can see how a lot of people are leaving the party. There is hardly any elected member of the party who I have spoken to that is intending to run his re-election campaign under the same platform.
“The Labour Party for me is in the past. I took a decision to go into APC not because I’m here to justify the actions of APC. I’m here as a catalyst for change,” he said.
The ruling party chieftain accused Governor Chukwuma Soludo, candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), of oscillating between the APC and APGA.
There are speculations, he noted, that President Bola Tinubu may be backing the governor’s re-election bid, because of the latter’s opposition to the presidential ambition of Obi.
“I don’t want the type of deal where Soludo is APGA in the afternoon and APC at night. You create confusion. You are not strengthening the party,” he added.
“If you want to be a man, be a man. If you want to be a woman, be a woman. If Soludo wants to be APGA, be APGA. Be proud of your APGA”, he said.
In February, Ozigbo resigned his membership of LP and joined the APC to contest for the Anambra governorship ticket, but he lost to Nicholas Ukachukwu.
However, he filed a lawsuit against the APC over the outcome of the primary election, which he claimed was fraught with irregularities.
