The Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, Mr Peter Obi made a strong political statement in his first attempt to become the President of Nigeria. Peter Obi who polled over 6 million votes in the election under eight months after joining Labour Party from the PDP. The candidate of the PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar on the other hand polled almost 7 million votes in the election. There have been suggestions that if Peter Obi had remained in PDP, the party would have won the election. A Former National Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, Adewale Oladipo has disagreed with this assertion as he stated categorically that Peter Obi benefitted from the marginalisation in the South East.
He said in an interview with Tribune Nigeria that Obi phenomenon didn’t exceed the boundary of the South East region. He alleged that the people from the zone would have voted in large numbers for any other person from their zone. According to him, Peter Obi exploited the desperation of his own people to get the Presidency seat. A desperation that he claimed couldn’t pull out votes from the Northern part of the country.
He said, ”Why do people like to assume that those who voted for Peter Obi would have voted for Atiku? Two plus two is not always four in politics. Obi was just a symbol of something. I say this with every sense of responsibility. The South East felt marginalised and the Zone just needed somebody from the Zone to rally around. Obi benefitted from the marginalization in the South East in the last elections. It could have been one Uche or anybody coming out of the zone on a political platform and the person would have garnered quite a number of votes.”
[Extracts From Tribune Nigeria]
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