Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who is running for president as a candidate for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), wants former President Olusegun Obasanjo to back Peter Obi, who is running for president as a candidate for the Labour Party.
Obasanjo backed Obi for the February 2023 presidential election in a letter on Sunday morning.
In response, a spokesman for Atiku’s campaign, Kola Ologbondiyan, said on Sunday that Obasanjo’s support doesn’t show what most Nigerians think.
According to Atiku’s campaign, Obi lacks the necessary expertise, and the PDP candidate is the most experienced of all the candidates. It said that it was certain that most Nigerians would vote for the PDP’s presidential candidate.
The former National Publicity Secretary of the PDP says that even though former President Obasanjo is allowed to have his own opinion, it is still just his own opinion and can’t change Nigerians’ plans to vote for Atiku to get rid of the supposed bad rule of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
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He was surprised that the former President would back Obi, who has never run a country before, given the serious problems the country is facing right now, which call for a tried and true leader.
Here is an excerpt from the statement: “However, Chief Obasanjo’s opinion cannot sway Nigerians, who can easily remember how he supported President Muhammadu Buhari, whose administration he now calls “stressful years for many Nigerians” and during which our country “moved from frying pan to fire and from mountain top to valley.”
So, it’s hard for Nigerians, especially young people, to accept Chief Obasanjo’s point of view as the solution to the country’s problems, since his previous candidate, in his opinion, failed Nigerians.
“According to our campaign, Atiku Abubakar is the only presidential candidate with Atiku’s combination of experience, aptitude, tenacity of purpose, presence of mind, and eagerness to serve.
“Atiku remains the most well-liked candidate, whose selection is not based on sectional, tribal, ethnic, or religious sentiments or the support of any particular person, high or low, but rather on a candidate’s track record of ability and performance, authentic vision, honesty, and character, as well as physical and mental capacity—the very standards established by the previous President.
“It is instructive to note that every claim by former President Obasanjo on the success of his administration is a reflection of Atiku Abubakar’s performance as his vice president and chairman of the National Economic Council, during which our country achieved unprecedented economic growth to become one of the fastest growing economies in the world,” the statement by the author reads.
Even though it is clear that Atiku will save Nigeria from its “current sombre state” if he is elected president, Ologbondiyan said that the former president is doing the country a disservice by making subjective suggestions.
The Atiku campaign organisation pleaded with Nigerians to ignore their personal opinions and stay committed to electing the former vice president in order to save the country.
