By Mario Deepromoter
Three leading opposition figures in Nigeria are discussing the possibility of a merger to salvage Nigerians from hunger and widespread insecurity ahead of the 2027 presidential election, a spokesman for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said on Monday.
PDP deputy national spokesman Ibrahim Abdullahi stated this on a national TV programme on Monday.
He said the three opposition candidates in the last election – PDP’s Atiku Abubakar, Labour Party’s Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) – would put personal interests aside and form a formidable alliance to defeat the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) come 2027.
Abdullahi said that had his party’s past leadership managed conflicts well, high-ranking chieftains like former Rivers State governor Nyesom Wike, Kwankwaso and Obi would still be full-blooded members of the PDP and the party would have defeated Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the last election.
He said, “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, Wike 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 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. Rest assured, there would light at the end of the tunnel. We have learnt our lessons in a bitter way.”
In the 2023 presidential election, Tinubu, came out tops in 12 of Nigeria’s 36 states, and secured significant numbers in several other states to claim the highest number of votes — 8,794,726, almost two million votes more than his closest rival — Atiku Abubakar of the PDP.
Atiku, who has ran for president six times, got 6,984,520 votes, while Obi, a first-time contestant, secured an unprecedented 6,101,533. Kwankwaso, former Kano State governor, finished fourth, claiming victory in his state — Kano. He secured 1,496,687 votes.
Interestingly, Obi and Kwankwaso were PDP members months before the last poll but cited irreconciliable difference as reasons they exited the party.