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…Confirms Receiving Only ₦10,000 in Three Months for Publicity

….Blames Leadership Apathy for Party’s Decline

….Tells Peter Obi You Can’t Break the Knees of a Horse for a Prize Race and Expect a Trophy

In the wake of widespread public reactions and internal party concerns trailing a recent online publication on the state of affairs within the Labour Party, the outgoing Interim National Publicity Secretary, Prince Tony Akeni, has issued an official disclaimer and clarification. The statement responds directly to a news report published by StreetReporters.ng on October 26, 2025, titled “EXCLUSIVE: Peter Obi’s Nenadi Usman Labour Party on the Brink — Infiltration, Infighting and Apathy Stifle Nigeria’s Strongest Opposition.”

While affirming the existence of a memo exclusively obtained by the news medium, the disclaimer, featured as Labour Party Digest 002, seeks to correct alleged misrepresentations, restate Akeni’s position on key issues raised in the report, and reaffirm his commitment to truth, transparency, and the collective progress of the Labour Party. It also underscores his broader reflections on leadership, accountability, and the urgent need for renewed dedication within the party’s ranks ahead of the 2027 general elections.

The disclaimer, however, confirmed The Street Reporters Newspaper report on the publicity secretary receiving only ₦10,000 data in three months for media publicity blamed leadership apathy for party’s decline while disowning certain quotes on the 2023 presidential candidate of the party, Peter Obi and the party’s fractional chairman, Senator Nenadi Usman, while insisting that the publicity arm of the party cannot fight anarchy with toothpicks.

Read the full disclaimer, unedited, below:

DOUBLE-DOWN D I S C L A I M E R

On

“EXCLUSIVE: Peter Obi’s Nenadi Usman Labour Party on the Brink — Infiltration, Infighting and Apathy Stifle Nigeria’s Strongest Opposition”

Published by James Ezema, Posted on October 26, 2025

My Disclaimer

By Prince Tony Akeni, Outgoing Interim National Publicity Secretary, Labour Party, October 29, 2025

My attention has been drawn to this news publication by countless Labour Party faithfuls, the media community and Nigerians home and abroad in general, who are from virtually every part of the federation, since it was published on the above credited date.

Since my earlier position to overlook the concerns of these well-meaning Nigerians appears not to abate the deluge of calls and enquiries about the publication, I hereby submit the following remarks in the hope that it will resolve the frenzy of enquiries.

To understand the background to this disclaimer, it is necessary to read through the above publication by Streetreporters.

Fellow members of the Labour Party and Nigerians in general, I state as follows.

1.  I do not seek a dime for the nationwide publicity needs of the Labour Party from anyone whose eyes are wide shut about the brutal realities of the battles of 2027 around the corner.

2.  I do not seek a dime for the nationwide publicity needs of our party from those who, in their ignorant bliss, expect Labour Party to take on a monstrous dictatorship without conscience as the ruling APC and the head of its table, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, with a zero budget. Those who, in essence, expect us to fight the ruling tyranny with toothpicks instead of foil for foil.

3.  I do not seek a dime from Mr. Peter Obi, our party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections, for the nationwide publicity needs of our party. Chief Peter Ameh is my witness in this claim, being in custody of reasons I advanced to him some time ago, long before these episodes. Please, verify from him.

4.  I hereby double down and disagree with those who serve me a double assault by asking that I apologize for protesting that the fabulous elephant amount of #10,000 (ten thousand naira) data or $6.25 (six dollars and twenty-five cents), which is all I have received till date from Prof. Theophilus Ndubuaku’s private pocket, is not realistic as national publicity logistics of Labour Party for three months between August to this hour of October 29, 2025.

5.  I also disclaim the dramatic exaggerations by this news blog in certain specific paragraphs relating to Sen. Nenadi Usman and Mr. Peter Obi. They are the reporter’s notions re-couched for reader attraction and published in quotation marks to make them appear to be my words.

6.  The above include the words “timid” and “quiet as a mouse” ascribed of me to Sen. Nenadi Usman. Furthermore, while the statement, “…lack of control and capacity to build and hold the party together has led to disarray, membership depletion and losses across the country” is mine, the statement was directed at the Sen. Nenadi Usman council and all other stakeholders of the party, not Mr. Peter Obi alone, even though Obi shares a sizeable portion of this blame. Still, the did is done and I take responsibility come what may.

7.  With the utmost good of our party in view, I use this opportunity to demand again leadership by example and collective sacrifices by all members of the Nenadi Usman council of the Labour Party, the NEC and stakeholders of our party nationwide. I double down on this sacred demand as the minimum duty expected of all responsible party men and women, especially everyone who wears and enjoys the toga of “stakeholder.”

8.  I demand and reiterate that the criminal Trojan in the Nenadi Usman led interim National Working Committee (iNWC) who asserts that the nationwide publicity of the party should be financed solely the officer assigned to that desk should be fished out to face disciplinary investigations for his or her daring treachery to silence the voice of our party to the advantage of the ruling APC or ADC exodus.

9.  I also eagerly wait for my replacement with Aliko Dangote, for the obvious reason, as Labour Party’s new national publicity secretary to be announced at the earliest date, after which I will formally step aside, since critical stakeholders whom I have profound respect for have sternly prevailed on me not to do so since October 15 till date. Dangote is one of only few citizens who can singlehandedly fund the publicity mandate of a stout opposition political party seeking to take out an incumbent not less than Tinubu.

10.  While I await that announcement, let me counsel that those who intend to use the Labour Party as a political filling-station to fuel, reboot and retool their 2027 ambitions before defecting to other parties should hurry up and be gone. We remain here as the party’s ideological doyens and are not going anywhere. 

11.  God is not short of a messiah in any generation; He is only short of courageous, consistent and committed ones who match their soapbox declarations with action gloves. With or without your celebrity deity, therefore, be rest-assured that the Labour Party of Nigeria shall resurge, rebound, soar again and one day, in our very generation, become the largest ruling workers party in Africa. And the world.

12.  Confident of that day, we request that rather than hang on the edges of loyalists’ labours to destroy and discourage those who are committed to building, zip your decamping bag, fie and be gone quickly.

13.  For all present elected officials and future aspirants of the Labour Party at different levels, this is for you. When luck is your strategy, you have no strategy. This is especially so when people depend on another man’s destiny to erect the scaffold of their own destinies. As a free advice, it is unwise to feed your present and future ambition with the carbide arrogance and indifference of destiny hangers-on, some of whom are in our NWC.

14.  In your best interest do not be a drifter who merely uses the Labour Party as a political spare-part to attain their election goal and drift like tumbleweed to the next reigning inferno. Do not be part of the party’s media and information blackout while waiting for other political parties to switch on their light for you as latter-day drifters to the game others have long set. The result of such gamble and gambit usually turn out less than hopeless.

15.  Today, among the media of the country and certain political tables, the Labour Party of the Peter Obi-Nenadi Usman council is the most ridiculed, lambasted and contempt-riddled political entity throughout Nigeria. Mingle incognito with the press and do your independent fact finding in any chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) across the country and you will be stunned.

16.  However, with diligence and lazer focus, the Labour Party shall overcome. By struggle, not by the present leadership apartheid and apathy that currently prevails over our party’s affairs.

17.  Finally, to Peter Obi in particular, you cannot break the knees of a horse for a prize race and expect a trophy. In the latter days where a Tinubu deity and Atiku Utopia reign supreme, half a word is enough for the wise.

Tony Akeni Le Moin
Outgoing Interim Labour Party National Publicity Secretary

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