BY: News Peddlers
Yabagi Sani, the presidential candidate of the Action Democratic Party, claims that his Labour Party counterpart, Peter Obi, is making "a lot of motion without movement," adding that Nigerians anger at APC and PDP does not guarantee that the former Anambra State governor will not be able to win 2023 general election.
Sani, the ADP leader and chairman of the Inter-party Advisory Committee, Nigeria's umbrella body of registered political parties, spoke on Channels Television's Political Paradigm program, which aired on Tuesday.
He dismissed Obi's Labour Party as the Third Force that Nigerians want to break away from the cyclical rotational governments of the Peoples Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress, the two parties that have controlled the center since Nigeria's return to democracy in 1999. The PDP ruled from 1999 until 2015, when the APC took over.
"It is not the Third Force that will bring us the needed change," he said, "but the fact that the makeup of these parties and what they represent today is a disaster."
"It is an expression of Nigerians' frustration with these two parties (APC and PDP), and it does not imply victory for Peter Obi... Will Peter Obi be able to meet the constitutional requirement of 25% across the board?
"When EndSARS happened, people thought it could be translated into a political force that would effect change, but it fizzled."
A presidential candidate can only be declared the winner if he or she "has the majority of votes cast at the election; and has not less than one-quarter of the votes cast at the election in at least two-thirds of all the States in the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja," according to Section 34 of the Independent National Electoral Commission's Regulations and Guidelines for the Conduct of Elections.
When asked if Obi has a chance to win the presidential election in 2023, the ADP presidential candidate said, "I don't think so if you situate it in our political structure, in our formula; what the constitution says you must have." Peter Obi will not be able to have it. Peter Obi can create a lot of motion without moving; he can make noise, but he can't win an election."
Sani went on to say that the only thing Peter Obi has going for him is that he is of Igbo descent, and there has been a call for a President from the South-East zone.
The ADP candidate questioned the integrity and parameters of an Anap Foundation poll that favored Obi. "Social media is not the same as a polling unit." The euphoria serves as entertainment. "Let's have some fun," he sneered.
Sani stated that his party is the main third force because it finished third in the recent Osun State Governorship Election, trailing only the PDP and APC.
"We are not into making noise," he said, adding that the ADP is a party to beat in Kano State, where presidential candidates such as the APC's Bola Tinubu and the PDP's Atiku Abubakar are expecting big votes.
According to him, based on the controversies surrounding their respective primaries, the APC and the PDP are shadows of themselves.
(CHANNELS TV)