The three leading opposition figures in Nigeria are discussing the possibility of a merger ahead of the 2027 presidential election.
The National spokesman for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ibrahim Abdullahi, disclosed this in an interview with Channels Television on Monday, September 2.
He said the three opposition candidates in the last elections 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, and “salvage Nigerians from hunger”.
Abdullahi said that had the party’s past leadership managed differences and party conflicts well, high-ranking chieftains like former Rivers State governor Nyesom Wike, Kwankwaso and Peter 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.
“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.”
When asked what would happen if Obi and the others returned to the PDP, he said;
‘’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.”
