SAHARA REPORTERS
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has revealed that candidates of three strong opposition parties in Nigeria are planning to form a merger to unseat the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) ahead of the general polls in 2027.
This was disclosed by the spokesman for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ibrahim Abdullahi, in an interview with Channels Television on Monday, September 2.
According to the PDP spokesman, the three opposition candidates in the last presidential election for the Atiku Abubakar; Labour Party, Peter Obi and New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), Rabiu Kwankwaso will put personal interests aside to work towards defeating the ruling APC and President Bola Tinubu in 2027.
He added that had the party’s past leadership managed differences and party conflicts well, PDP chieftains like former Rivers State governor Nyesom Wike, Kwankwaso and Peter Obi would still be members of the PDP and the party would have defeated Bola Tinubu in the last election.
When asked if the PDP was trying to get Obi, Kwankwaso, Wike and others back into the party, Abdullahi said: “We’ve lost Kwankwaso, we’ve lost Peter Obi, all of these people, imagine if they were in the party, we would 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.
“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.
‘’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.”
Meanwhile, the African Action Congress presidential candidate in the 2023 general election, Omoyele Sowore had said he would not join any alliance proposed by Atiku, Obi and Kwankwaso.
He said that he did not crave Peter Obi’s supporters and did not wish to be packaged and sold to the public as someone else.
Sowore said: “I have been very clear about it. There are no two definitions of revolution. A revolution is an event or a series of events that put an end to a system of oppression.
“So, our revolution is the same revolution that’s happened elsewhere where people rise up and say enough is enough. They want to move in a different direction; they want a different trajectory in governance, and the only difference in our case is that we did not organise a revolution that will be bloody.
“We wanted it to be by civil means and that is the only difference. Even when I was arrested, detained and interrogated about my intentions. I made it very clear that the revolution I want is the one that puts an end to all this nonsense.
“So that there can be a different or brand new political order that shifts power from those who are robbing the people who deserve great governance and a better life in this country.
“That’s what revolution is everywhere. And that’s one I still preach to date. I just said RevolutionNow because I want it to happen now.
“I’m one of the first partisan politicians who has put his ideology in writing, and I have a website and social media handles where I espouse this ideology. I speak openly on YouTube videos explaining where I stand, and they are not in any way related to APC or PDP.
“I support the minimum wage, but I call it a living wage. In 2018, I said it was ₦100,000, and people were mocking me, and now I’ve been vindicated.”
“So, I’m blatantly welfarist. I support the welfare of the public, the Nigerian people, from the standpoint of a socialist democrat. So I lean towards socialism, that whatever is the people’s wealth should go directly to them,” Sowore added.
