Peter Obi Did Not Deny Atiku The Presidency
PDP members and leaders have continued with this theory about how Peter Obi was the singular factor that deny their candidate, Atiku Abubakar from emerging President. This narrative would have borne been ignored but the fact that many people, including Obidients are taking this from the wrong prism. For instance, a former aide to President Goodluck Jonathan and one of the spokespersons of the Atiku Abubakar 2023 campaign took this mischief one notch clearer by calling Peter Obi; “a saboteur who stopped Atiku from becoming President”.
To put this in a better light, some backgrounds to the relationship between Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, and Obi’s political trajectory may bear being re-emphasized.
It is wrong to try to make Atiku Abubakar into any kind of mentor or even boss to Peter Obi. Peter Obi was already a multi-billionaire in 2003 when he sought and effectively disrupted the Anambra political landscape as well as setting new precedents in Nigeria’s electoral jurisprudence. While Peter Obi’s greatest selling point is his performance and governance styles in the highly disruptive eight years he was governor of Anambra State but Atiku is regularly weighed down by numerous corruption allegations surrounding his time as Vice-president.
Peter Obi’s alliance with Atiku Abubakar in 2019 happens to be the former Vice-president best outing in the six times he has sought to be Nigerian President. This shows without doubts that the former Anambra governor brought value to the ticket by helping to make the Atiku presidential bid more acceptable to Nigerians.
Atiku Abubakar would have reciprocated Peter Obi’s gesture to him 2019 by suspending his presidential ambition in 2023 and throwing his support Peter Obi whom it was obvious, is the most popular politician in Nigeria currently. Supporting Peter Obi would not only have benefited the PDP but also the entire country, as Peter Obi would have won the election with much more margin than he did in 2023. Yes, everyone who is sensible knows that Peter Obi won the 2023 election, clean and fair.
Like Reno, any PDP member who continues with the nonsense blame game of Peter Obi causing their failure in the election should advise Atiku to withdraw his petition from the PEPT, because it is clear that the PDP concedes that their candidate lost the election, so there shouldn’t be any need for them to continue to waste our time in court. Peter Obi and the LP have shown more seriousness in prosecuting their argument in court by presenting watertight evidence to prove that they were robbed of their victory in the election. This is why you can’t see any reasonable person within the Obi team blaming any other person but INEC for robbing them of their well-deserved victory in the election.
There are indications that if the real results of the election were announced, Atiku Abubakar would have actually placed a distant third position while Bola Tinubu would be in second position, as Peter Obi won with over 55% of valid votes cast in that election.
Like I had written somewhere in the past, the best thing Alhaji Atiku Abubakar would do at this point in time is to withdraw his frivolous and unprovable petition and stand as a star witness in support of Peter Obi’s petition.
