Moves are ongoing to get the leading Nigeria’s opposition figures, Mr. Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso of the Labour Party (LP) and the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), respectively to forge an alliance against the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2027.
The PDP deputy national spokesman, Ibrahim Abdullahi, stated this on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme, yesterday.
Abdullahi said if Obi and Kwankwaso had remained in the PDP which had Atiku Abubakar as its standard bearer during the election, it would have defeated Bola Tinubu of the APC.
Kwankwaso and Obi left the PDP in March and May 2022, a few months before the 2023 presidential election. In the election, Tinubu polled 8,794,726, while Atiku got 6,984,520 votes. Obi garnered 6,101,533 while Kwankwaso, former Kano State governor, finished fourth with 1,496,687 votes.
Abdullahi said the opposition would have carried the day if Peter Obi and Kwankwaso had not left the fold. “We’ve lost Kwankwaso, we’ve lost Peter Obi, all of these people, imagine if they are in the party, we will have gone to win the elections.
“This APC said they defeated us with one million plus (votes), just one of these names that I mentioned would have covered that gap for us and we would have been in power today and certainly Nigerians would not have been confronted with this despair and despondency in the land.”
Asked if the PDP is trying to get Obi, Kwankwaso and others back into the party, Abdullahi said, “Sure, discussion is ongoing. You will see Peter Obi discussing with Atiku, you will see Peter Obi meet- ing with (Nasir) El-Rufai. Party management is a very difficult thing and we are doing the best in the quagmire that we have found ourselves in. Rest assured, there would be light at the end of the tunnel. We have learnt our lessons in a bitter way.”
Asked what would happen if Obi and the others returned to the PDP, he said: “One of them would concede for the other and then we would have a direction.
“Our concern as a party and to these people that I have mentioned is to ensure that we salvage Nigerians from this despair and despondency, between maladies of hunger and frightening insecurity in the land. You could see cluelessness and ineptitude on the part of these people managing this country.”
He said pulling Nigerians out of the present hardship was more important than the individual ambitions of Atiku, Kwankwaso and Obi.
“Atiku is saying if it is better for him to get Nigeria out of this hopelessness, he would do so. “He (Atiku) must not be in the race. Atiku is saying that it is an entitlement to him as a democrat; the constitution provides for him that he could contest at any time.
“What he is trying to say is that (there) is no ceiling stopping him from contesting. That is his fundamental democratic right but he is not saying that he will force it on the throat of the party or the country.
“I am telling you clearly: Peter Obi is suitably qualified; he can aspire and we will support him if he gets the ticket. Atiku is suitably qualified and if he gets the ticket, we will rally behind him and give him the desired support to salvage Nigerians out of this situation.”
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