2023: How Obi is Threatening Atiku’s Aspiration, Aiding Tinubu’s Ambition – Dino Melaye
By Ozumi Abdul
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has alleged that the ‘Obidients’ campaigning for the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi, are indirectly working for the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The PDP accused Obi of planning to split votes in it’s major strongholds of southeast and south-south which will be in APC’s favour.
The accusation was made by the spokesman of the PDP presidential campaign council, Dino Melaye, who called on Obi to “come back home” to support Atiku in order to stop the continuation of APC in government.
In an interaction with some journalists on Saturday in Abuja, Melaye noted that Obi does not have the capacity to unite the country.
He claimed that Obi would not win the presidential election because the Labour Party does not have the structure to do so.
He noted that the Labour Party has only 30 senatorial candidates as against the 109 senatorial seats.
“I will start without colouring it. And Nigerians must know that any vote for Peter Obi is a vote for APC because Peter Obi cannot make it. So, anybody that is voting for the Labour Party is actually voting for Tinubu. Anybody that is campaigning for Peter Obi is actually praying and working for Tinubu to become the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria because if you are voting for Peter Obi, you are depleting the votes of PDP because Peter Obi cannot make it,” he said.
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“The truth of the matter is that the Labour Party only fielded 30 out of 109 candidates for the Senate. So who is going to protect the votes of the Labour Party when even fielding candidates for 109 senatorial seats they couldn’t. They only fill that in 30 constituencies. Even the House of Representatives, they couldn’t field in every constituency. For the House of Assembly they couldn’t fill up to 50 percent across the country,” Melaye stated.
He said fielding candidates for these positions is a basic criterion for measuring a party’s national spread for elections.
He further likened Obi to a regional candidate, claiming that that was the reason why Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and Aminu Kano couldn’t emerge presidents of Nigeria.
He added that Buhari emerged president after he ran on a national platform of the APC, having lost elections three times because he was a regional champion.
“Chief Awolowo was a fantastic leader, intellectually mobile and cerebral, very sagacious. But because he was running on regional grounds, both as Action Group and a UPN candidate, he never became the president of this country.
“Azikiwe, another fantastic nationalist, but because he was a regional champion he was only able to produce governors within the eastern part of his country.
“Aminu Kano, a very pious man with all sincerity and integrity, could only win elections with PRP in Kano and Kaduna. Buhari himself, ran on regional grounds three times and lost woefully because he was the regional champion, both in ANPP and in CPC, he couldn’t win until he ran on a national platform. When people like Atiku, Tinubu, Saraki and myself collapsed to form a national party that was when Buhari could become president. So historically, Peter Obi ought to know that no regional champion can be president in Nigeria,” he argued.
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