Votes taken from PDP strongholds not enough to make Obi president – Atiku

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, on Thursday opened up on why his Labour Party counterpart, Peter Obi, left the party last year.

Obi dumped the PDP on May 27, 2022 and joined the LP to pursue his presidential aspiration.

Abubakar, who spoke at a media briefing in Abuja, declared that the LP candidate left the PDP because he was scared of the demands of the party’s governors.

The former Vice President polled 6,984,520 votes to finish second in the election behind the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, while Obi garnered 6,101,533 votes.

Tinubu scored 8,794,726 votes to emerge as the country’s new president.

Abubakar said: “I think Peter was in a rush. When the campaign started, and our PDP governors sat down and said they must produce the presidential and vice presidential candidates, the chief of staff among themselves, Peter (Obi) got scared and left.

“I did not get scared. I stood up against the governors. When we founded the PDP, some of them (governors) were perhaps in secondary schools or universities. So, why should I be afraid? So, I stood up and I fought them. They fought me and I fought them and I won the primary election.

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“So, if he was there, nothing could have stopped him from becoming a running mate because I had the right to choose whoever I wanted as my running mate.

“So, questions of whether I will work with Peter or whether he wounded (scuttled) PDP chances? Well, he did to some extent because all the votes he polled were PDP votes in South-South and South-East. But whether he will achieve his ambition or not, is left for God to decide.

“At the time Peter decided to leave the PDP and join Labour Party, we had not, I believed, begun our primary election process, so the question about whether he was going to get the ticket or not did arise.

“Yes, I agree it is a fact that he took our votes from the South-East and South-South but that, of course, would not make him a president. Absolutely, it will not.

“You all know that to be a president in this country, you need a vote from everywhere. But he is welcome to dialogue with the PDP and we are ready to dialogue with him. I don’t think we will have any problem if he wants to dialogue with PDP whether he forms an alliance or not.”

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