Atiku would have succeeded if Obi had not left PDP—Okowa

Outgoing governor of Delta State, Ifeanyi Okowa, says Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would have won the February 25 presidential election if Peter Obi had not dumped the PDP for the Labour Party.

Speaking extensively in a chat with journalists on Sunday, Okowa who was the Vice Presidential candidate to Atiku, said PDP’s analysis had shown that a northern presidency was a better strategy for winning the presidential election.

“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.”

The Delta state governor added that the strategy was drawn on the basis of reducing the chances of massive votes for the APC.

Okowa said the plan was thwarted when Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the election, left the PDP.

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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,” he said.

“So it ate very deep into our votes and that is what led to the loss of the elections.”

Obi had resigned membership of the PDP over concerns about the party’s refusal to accept “constructive contributions”.

He also spoke on the accusations of betrayal levelled against him regarding the southern presidency agenda.

He said the issue of zoning was never discussed as a main agenda at the meeting in Asaba, adding that it was only passed across as an afterthought.

“I don’t think there was any betrayal, people give the wrong communication. In the first instance, the meeting we held in Asaba never talked about the issue of a southern president. The meeting we held in Asaba was to discuss the issue concerning herdsmen and the need to find a way to stop it,” he said.

Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) defeated Atiku and Obi in the keenly contested election with a total of 8,794,726 votes.

Atiku had the second-highest figure with 6,984,520 votes, while Obi was third with 6,101,533 votes.

Both the PDP and LP have challenged Tinubu’s victory.