A chieftain of the People Democratic Party, Otunba Segun Sowunmi, has said his party needs to explore possible means of bringing back the Labour Party presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, into its fold.
Obi left the PDP in May 2022 for the Labour Party, reportedly complaining of massive bribing of delegates and vote buying during the party’s presidential primary. He also cited the existence of a party clique collaborating against him.
But three years later, Sowunmi is asking the PDP to work to bring Obi back.
‘’One of the people who was a PDP member, a South eastern man who felt based on the balance of play that the South-East was excluded, Peter Obi, was allocated 6.2 million votes, you lose the election, you run to the Supreme Court you lose, at least you were adjudged to have lost.
‘’Any deep-thinking, fair-minded Nigerian man who is in the political party called the PDP ought to know that the greatest, necessary next step is to have the conversation about: ‘How do you bring Peter back’ now that the energy driving him is organic,’’ Sowunmi said in an interview on Friday during Channels Television’s Politics Today.
The PDP has been embroiled in crisis since the 2023 presidential election, in which its candidate, Atiku Abubakar, lost to President Bola Tinubu.
Following the suspension and removal of Iyorchia Ayu, Damagum, who was originally the Deputy National Chairman (North), was appointed acting chairman. However, efforts by the North Central zone to replace him with a substantive chairman have created deep divisions within the party.
The position of national secretary has become the subject of a legal battle between Anyanwu and Ude-Okoye, pushing the agenda to replace Damagum.
According to Sowunmi, the internal crisis and sudden spring in defections to the All Progressives Congress (APC) are self-inflicted and should have been sorted out a while back
“There is a level of activity that you can blame your bullies for, but there is a certain level of recurring, continuous lack of creativity that you have you have to hold yourself responsible for,” he said.
“One of the things that people do is fall prey to the frail nature of President Bola Tinubu. I know him for his intellectual capacity. He will look frail, but his brain is that of a giant somost tomes people underestimate him to their own peril.
‘’The painful thing is that my own side is choosing to pretend that it is an easy material to defeat in politics. What do they know that he doesn’t know?”
