Obi allies fire back at Kenneth Okonkwo over betrayal remark

Allies of Mr. Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the last election, has debunked statements by his former campaign spokesman, Kenneth Okonkwo, in which he accused Obi of betrayal.

In a viral podcast, Okonkwo claimed that despite working strenuously for Obi during and after the last presidential election, the former Anambra State governor betrayed him in the end.

He said: “Any politician that knows what he is doing cannot be betrayed by another. If there is anybody that betrayed the other, I can say it emphatically that Peter Obi betrayed me.”

Okonkwo, who left LP in February 2025, argued that he had advised Obi to steer clear of the Julius Abure-led executives of the party, but he went ahead to publicly endorse the faction.

He said: “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. But I told him, ‘Sir, you have made a public statement on integrity, and even if INEC has accepted them, that should not be a reason for you to return to a group that has shown they are not democratic. If you go back to them, they will destroy your political career and everything you’ve stood for.’

“After saying all those things, within 72 hours, Obi went to Abure’s office to publicly endorse them. While he was there speaking to them, one of the leaders in that executive sent me the video to mock me, saying the person I was defending against them had returned to endorse them.

“It was only when INEC later dissociated itself from Abure that Obi began acting neutral. But I told him he could not remain neutral and that something needed to be done.”

But in a sharp rebuttal, Obi’s key allies rejected Okonkwo’s claims, questioning his loyalty and describing his allegations as a politically motivated misrepresentation of facts.

In a series of posts on Saturday on X, a former spokesman of the Obi-Datti Campaign Team, Nana Sani Kazaure, flayed what she called Okonkwo’s “penchant for distractive drama and inconsistency.”

She said: “Since when did one’s refusal to shed the blood of Nigerians on the streets become betrayal? Did former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan betray Nigerians too when he said the blood of Nigerians worth more than his political ambition?

“Given Mr Okonkwo’s association with PO in the past few years, who can truly be called a traitor in the circumstances?”

Kazaure said she had no doubt that every day, in public and in private, Okonkwo would be confronted by the “overwhelming feelings of the people over his recent direction, vituperation, and battles daily with his conscience.”

She added: “Anyways, Mr Okonkwo, your opinion is entirely yours, just as your persistent scathing focus on Peter Obi is only representative of your current political refuge. As we say in local parlance, kindly please face your front and Anlay-lay from here.

Also, the National Coordinator of the Obidients Movement Worldwide, Yunusa Tanko, criticised Okonkwo’s comment, describing as a misrepresentation of fact.

“Obi is coming. No distractions. No conspiracy. No misrepresentation can stop the moving train. A new Nigeria is possible,” he said.

The National Secretary of the Coalition of United Political Parties, Peter Ameh, who is a staunched supporter of Obi, also flayed Okonkwo.

“You have addressed the issue thoroughly, as anticipated. These scathing attacks are not merely coincidental. There is more to them than appears on the surface,” he posted.

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