Ahead of the 2027 general elections, the once viral Labour Party, LP, appears to be losing steam and membership strength across the country.
The members-elect of the National Assembly were sworn in on 13 June, 2023, the LP had the third-largest caucus in the National Assembly, with 34 members in the House of Representatives and eight senators.
The ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, had the largest number of members, followed by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, the Labour Party, and the New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP.
The Peter Obi effect had transformed the relatively obscure Labour Party into a national force, particularly in the Southeast, South-South, North-Central, and Lagos.
The top-to-bottom voting pattern helped elect several Labour Party lawmakers who rode on Obi’s popularity.
Eighteen months later, the Labour Party caucus in the National Assembly is rapidly depleting.
This is due to court rulings that removed four members— Senator Darlington Nwakocha, Stainless Nwodo from Enugu, Emeka Nnamani from Abia, and Chijioke Okereke from Enugu and a wave of defections shaking the party.
In the last 10 days alone, the Labour Party has lost six members in the House of Representatives to the ruling APC.
Last week, four members— Chinedu Okere (Owerri Municipal/Owerri North/Owerri West Constituency), Mathew Donatus (Kaura Federal Constituency, Kaduna), Akiba Bassey (Calabar Municipal/Odukpani Constituency), and Esosa Iyawe (Oredo Federal Constituency, Edo), left the party on the same day.
This week, Dalyop Chollom and Alfred Ajang, both from Plateau State, abandoned “Mama, Papa, and Pikin” and embraced the APC’s “broom.”
Earlier in July, Senator Ezenwa Onyewuchi also defected from the Labour Party to the APC.
