Kenneth Okonkwo, a Nollywood actor and former spokesperson for the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council, has said Peter Obi betrayed him during the party’s internal crisis.
In an interview with Symfoni, which began trending on Saturday, Okonkwo revealed that he left the Labour Party in February 2025 after Obi decided to support the faction led by Julius Abure, despite his warnings.
“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,” he said.
Okonkwo explained that the Julius Abure-led group misled Obi by telling him that the Independent National Electoral Commission had recognised them. He said he warned Obi not to believe 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,” he 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 added that he also warned other members of Obi’s inner circle.
“I told Obi that these people had become agents in the hands of the government to destabilise him. What they did was absolutely illegal and unconstitutional. I told him that if he went back to them, I wouldn’t join him in doing so,” he said.
“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.”
According to Okonkwo, his worst fear came true when Obi visited the Abure faction’s office and publicly showed support.
“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.”
He said Obi only began to act neutral after INEC disowned the Abure faction.
“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,” Okonkwo added.
