President Muhammadu Buhari may have been followed by a northerner if Peter Obi hadn’t defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), according to departing Delta State Governor and 2023 vice presidential nominee Ifeanyi Okowa.
Okowa claimed that the PDP had researched and determined that the best method to prevent the All Progressives Congress (APC) from gaining significant bloc votes in the 2023 elections was to run a northern candidate with a southern running partner.
Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president, eventually won the PDP nomination after the party opened up its presidential ticket.
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The Delta State Governor, however, said that Obi’s decision to enter the race for the ticket stoked racist and religious prejudices, and that his subsequent choice to leave the PDP for the Labour Party had an impact on PDP votes.
During a conversation with media on Sunday in Asaba, he made the submission.
If Obi hadn’t defected from the PDP, Okowa claimed, the northern presidency would have been successful.
“I belong to the PDP and for me as a person and for the majority of the people in the PDP, they believed that our pathway to victory was to have a northern candidate and a southern vice,” he said.
“Why? Because we were not a majority.”
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“The only thing that turned our reasoning out was when Obi came out from the south-east and there were a lot of feelings that came in among the Christians.
“So it ate very deep into our votes and that is what led to the loss of the elections,” Okowa added.
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