Anambra state governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, said that the Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi cannot win the 2023 presidential election, OduNews reports.
Soludo had come under heavy criticisms recently after he claimed, during an interview with Channels TV on Thursday, that the value of investments made by Mr Obi while he was the governor of the state was “worth next to nothing.”
But responding in a long statement on Monday, the governor described the criticisms as “infantile exuberances, exhibition of desperation and intolerance” by supporters of the LP candidate.
He contended that Mr Obi cannot win the presidential election.
“Let’s be clear: Peter Obi knows that he can’t and won’t win. He knows the game he is playing, and we know too; and he knows that we know. The game he is playing is the main reason he didn’t return to APGA,” Mr Soludo said.
“The brutal truth, and some will say, God forbid, is that there are two persons or (political) parties seriously contesting for president: the rest is exciting drama!” he stated, without mentioning names.
The governor said although he had wished the LP candidate well ahead of the poll, he had equally told him that his victory in the election was unlikely.
“That is from my heart, but I also told him that my head and facts on the ground led me to know that its probability is next to zero. What I cannot say before you, I won’t say behind you.
“So, I already told him my opinion. Indeed, there is no credible pathway for him near the first two positions, and if care is not taken, he won’t even near the third position. Analysts tell him you don’t need ‘structure’ to win,” he said.
Mr Soludo claimed the LP won the Ekiti and Osun States’ governorship elections “on social media and via phantom polls”, but failed to win the elections afterwards.
The governor also said that Mr Obi was likely to win in Anambra State, having come from the area, but that the LP candidate needs more than the state to win next year’s poll.
“Anambra is not Nigeria. If he likes, I can even campaign for him but that won’t change much,” he said, adding that poll results indicated the level of his acceptance had declined.
He also claimed that Mr Obi was helping the APC candidate, Mr Tinubu, to win the general election.
“Indeed, if I were Asiwaju Tinubu, I would even give Peter Obi money as someone heading one of the departments of his campaign because Obi is making Tinubu’s pathway to victory much easier by indirectly pulling down Peoples Democratic Party (PDP),” he said.
Mr Soludo said he has repeatedly asked Mr Obi to return to the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and become the party’s presidential candidate, but he declined.
He said Mr Obi left APGA despite swearing to the late Biafran warlord, Odimegwu Ojukwu, that he would not leave the party.
He said the LP candidate also told Igbos that APGA was the vehicle for Igbo presidency dream.
“I hope that after February 2023, Peter Obi will return to APGA, the party that made him everything he is politically, as I offered him on March 8 2022, and begin the hard work, if he truly wants to be president of Nigeria,” the governor said.
In October 2014, Mr Obi left APGA for the PDP, where he became Mr Atiku’s running mate in the 2019 presidential election.
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