The Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Atiku Abubakar, says the party is open to forming an alliance with the Labour Party (LP), and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi.
Atiku disclosed this while speaking at a press conference on Thursday evening.
Recalled that Obi was Atiku’s running mate during the 2019 presidential election.
However, this time around, both men were fighting for the PDP ticket before Obi decamped to LP.
Atiku admitted that the PDP lost a considerable number of votes to Peter Obi, during the presidential election.
“It is a fact that he took our votes from the southeast and the south-south — that of course would not make him a president,” he said.
“You all know that to be a president in this country you all need votes from everywhere. So Peter is welcome to dialogue with PDP — we are ready to dialogue with him.
“I don’t think we will have any problem if he wants to dialogue with PDP — either form an alliance or not.”
Atiku said Obi left the party and joined the LP after governors in the PDP insisted that someone among them be the standard-bearer and vice presidential candidate.
He said instead of leaving the party, he “stood and fought the governors” and won the party’s presidential ticket.
“I think Peter was in a rush (to leave),” he said.
“Peter got scared and left. I did not get scared. I stood up against the governors.
“When we formed the PDP some of them (PDP governors) were perhaps in secondary schools or the university.
“So if he (Obi) was there, nothing could have stopped him from becoming a running mate because I had the right to choose whoever I wanted to choose as my running mate.”
On Wednesday, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Tinubu as the winner of the election and also issued him a certificate of return.
Mahmood Yakubu, chairman of the INEC, said Tinubu secured 8,794,726 votes.
Abubakar had the second-highest figure with 6,984,520 votes, while Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) was next with 6,101,533 votes.
Both the PDP and LP have rejected the results and vowed to challenge the election in court.
Comments are closed.