The Senator representing the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mrs. Ireti Kingibe has said, although she remained a member of the Labour Party, she has aligned with the opposition coalition on the platform of the African Democratic Party (ADC).
‘Yes, I am (still a member of the Labour Party) but I support the ADC’, she affirmed on Channels Television’s Political Paradigm programme on Tuesday.
The lawmaker, who was elected on the Labour Party platform in 2023, said that the Labour Party would bungle the chances of the opposition in the forthcoming FCT election, hence the choice of the ADC.
She said: ‘Labour Party is in some sort of a quagmire. We are trying to put it together, but I do not see the Labour Party in the present way it is as a vehicle that can win any election. It’s been very fractured and broken.
‘We have local government elections coming…So, we needed a platform. The Labour Party would have been that platform, but it was broken. There are two factions of the Labour Party right now.
‘I know the FCT can win, not on APC (All Progressives Congress). So, ADC has credible candidates, and it is that platform we are going to use to show them’.
On whether she might dump the Labour Party if the leadership crisis within the party persists, the 71-year-old lawmaker said: ‘Maybe, I might eventually’.
Ahead of the 2027 polls, talks about an inter-party alliance reached a climax last Wednesday when opposition arrowhead, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, alongside Labour Party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi; a former Senate President David Mark; former Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola; former Minister of Transporation, Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi; and a former Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, amongst others, adopted the ADC as the platform by the opposition coalition to oust incumbent President Bola Tinubu whose administration has been accused of mismanaging the economy, with all-time high inflation and unprecedented cost of living.
The coalition is banking on the numerical strength of the votes recorded by Atiku and Obi in the last presidential poll. In 2023, Atiku of the Peoples Democratic Party and Labour Party’s Obi came second and third respectively with combined votes of over 12 million, more than four million above the total votes recorded by Tinubu to win the election.
