Drop Peter Obi or you lose, northern youth group tells Atiku

A northern youth group, the Northern Youth Leaders Forum has warned the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Atiku Abubakar to drop his running mate, Peter Obi or risk losing the 2019 presidential election.

The youths made the demand after a meeting with former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Monday night in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.

According to the group, Atiku has to review the choice of the former governor of Anambra State if he hopes to earn the support of the North.

The group, which claims to be the apex body of 46 youth organisations in the North, said it would mobilise its over six million members against the PDP and its presidential candidate, if Atiku failed to take its advice.

Speaking with newsmen on Tuesday in Abeokuta, National Chairman of the group, Comrade Elliot Afiyo, who spoke on their behalf, said the body had been instrumental to the electoral victories of successive presidents since 1999, including incumbent President Buhari.

It also said it played a major role in the reconciliation between Obasanjo and Atiku.

According to Afiyo, the choice of Obi was causing friction in the Southeast, which, he said, is largely responsible for the impending defection of the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremandu, from the PDP.

Afiyo, who said Obi is strongly viewed as anti-north and a major sponsor of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), claimed that over 70 percent of Emirs and other traditional rulers in the North will not support Atiku’s choice of running mate and maintained that PDP will fail to produce the next president, if the party eventually flies the Atiku/Obi ticket.

Read also: Shehu Sani joins new party

He therefore counseled PDP to pick Atiku’s running mate from South south between either Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike or his Bayelsa State counterpart, Seriake Dickson.

Afiyo said: “Atiku is an experienced politician, and he knows what happened and as a northern Nigerian, he cannot ignore that group. I have spoken to almost all the Southeast governors and they told me that they remained in PDP because of their governorship elections and after their governorship elections, they will vote somewhere, not PDP.

“And for us to ignore the stakeholders, it is political suicide, so we must agree with that fact. That was what we told Obasanjo yesterday, that as far as we want Atiku to succeed, he has no alternative than to drop Peter Obi and with the contention between Peter Obi’s group and Ike Ekweremadu’s group, it is not politically convenient again to pick a running mate from the Southeast.”

 

RipplesNigeria… without borders, without fears

Click here to join the Ripples Nigeria WhatsApp group for latest updates.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now