Former Labour Party presidential campaign spokesperson, Kenneth Okonkwo, has blamed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for its ongoing internal crisis, accusing its leaders of turning into political subordinates of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Okonkwo, a veteran actor and politician, made the statement on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme on Friday, February 7, 2025, where he argued that the PDP’s declining relevance is due to its leaders’ willingness to serve the interests of the APC.
The former LP spokesperson pinpointed President Bola Tinubu’s appointment of ex-Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, as a major turning point that significantly weakened the PDP’s standing as an opposition party.
Recall that in the 2023 elections, Wike, a high-ranking PDP member, allegedly worked against his party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, leading to Tinubu’s victory.
Despite being a PDP member, he was later rewarded with the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) portfolio by the APC-led government.
Okonkwo maintained that Wike’s ministerial role further cemented PDP’s political vulnerability, as the party leadership could no longer function effectively as a true opposition.
He said, “Look at what is going on in the PDP. For instance, some people came out as G5 and worked against the interest of the party, not covertly but overtly, and everyone saw it. You accommodated them and then gave excuses for them.
“Normally, when you accept such things, it would start graduating, now they want to take over the party and they’ve been given an appointment…then they would go ahead to hijack the party, and when they hijack it, the true members of the party would become servants to the servant because their main leader is now a servant to the APC by being a minister in the APC and the remaining ones are servants to that leader, meaning the PDP is now a servant of servant to the APC.”
Commenting on Atiku’s recent claim that the APC bribes opposition parties to destabilise them ahead of the 2027 election, Okonkwo faulted the former Vice President, saying his statement indicts opposition parties and not the ruling APC.
He argued that the APC shouldn’t be blamed for ‘bribing’ the opposition parties because it is legitimate for the party to use whatever means to destroy its opponents.
“I will never blame the ruling party or anything happening in the opposition party because excuses and successes do not go hand in hand. I listened to His Excellency, Atiku Abubakar saying the ruling party gave N50m to the opposition party. I was not ashamed of the ruling party. I was ashamed of the opposition parties. You’re actually indicting the opposition parties that they are very corrupt. If there’s no willing receiver, there will be no available giver. It is a legitimate political weapon for any association, party or country to use whatever means to destabilase the opposition or opponent,” he said.
He, therefore, called on opposition parties to take responsibility for their failure, adding that Atiku’s bribery claim showed that opposition parties are incompetent and corrupt.
“Opposition has not lived up to the expectations of Nigerian people. They should own up, take responsibility for their failure and go back amongst themselves and do the right thing. Reject the ruling party’s offer to destabilize you because it is in their political interest to destabilise the opposition. But the opposition allowing itself to be destabilise shows that they are incompetent and corrupt,” Okonkwo said.