Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso , the three opposition candidates of the People Democratic Party, PDP, Labour Party, LP and New Nigerian Party,NNP, in the 2023 general election are discussing the possibility of a merger and backing a candidate for the 2027 presidential election.
According to the National spokesman for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ibrahim Abdullahi, who spoke in an interview with Channels Television on Monday, the three opposition candidates have agreed to put personal interests aside and form a formidable alliance to defeat the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) come 2027, and “salvage Nigerians from hunger”.
“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,” he said.
On the possibility of Obi returning to PDP, Abdullahi said
“Sure, discussion is ongoing. You will see Peter Obi discussing with Atiku, you will see Peter Obi meeting 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.”
He said if Obi returns to PDP, the choice of who will be the presidential candidate will be sorted out.
‘’One of them would concede to 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.”