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A member of the Peoples Democratic Party’s Reconciliation Committee, Eddy Olafeso, has called on the leaders of his party to reach out to the Labour Party Presidential candidate in 2023, Peter Obi and other opposition political party leaders for an alliance if it they hope to defeat the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2027
Obi, who was an aspirant under the PDP, left the party before its primary in 2022 to the Labour Party.
At the Presidential polls, Obi garnered a total of 6,101,533 votes to come third in the election behind Bola Tinubu who scored a total of 8,794,726 votes to emerge winner.
The PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar scored 6,984,520 votes to emerge as the runner up..
Olafeso spoke while appearing on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Wednesday.
Asked if the crisis-hit PDP need to court Obi to have a chance against the APC in 2027, Olafeso said, “Not only Peter Obi, every person that is somebody in this country that can actually garner one or two votes must be spoken with.”
The PDP chieftain reiterated the need for a strong alliance to battle APC in 2027, saying that it would be very difficult for one political party to defeat the ruling party.
“It is not only here that you have alliances; you have people working together to be able to win an election,” he said.
“It happened in Ghana not quite a long time ago and that is exactly what we all should do at this moment, no single party can defeat APC alone, don’t let us delude ourselves. We must all come together to fight.”
He blamed PDP leadership for the balkanisation of the party ahead of the 2023 election which contributed to its loss at the polls.
Olafeso noted that the combination of Atiku and Obi’s votes would have sent Tinubu to a distant second, regretting the inability of the PDP leadership to keep its house together ahead of the 2023 election.
The crisis in the PDP has continued to linger, as Atiku and the FCT Minister Nyesom Wike, are yet to reconcile since their falling out after the party’s primary in 2022.
However, Olafeso insisted that the rift between the two leaders was not irreconcilable, expressing confidence that the party would walk through that door and bring everybody together.
Meanwhile, there was chaos at the National Secretariat of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Abuja on Wednesday when supporters of Samuel Anyanwu, the embattled National Secretary of the party, and those of Udeh Okoye, clashed during the party’s Board of Trustees meeting.
Mr Okoye is also laying claim to the office of the national secretary.
The violent clash disrupted the meeting resulting in the intervention of armed security personnel.
The BoT meeting was presided over by the chairman, Adolphus Wabara, and it was attended by other prominent members including the acting national chairman of the party, Umar Damagun; ex-Niger governor, Babangida Aliyu; ex-Kaduna governor, Ahmed Markafi; and ex-Jigawa governor, Sule Lamido.
The BoT meeting was called to address the issue of the national secretaryship that has split the PDP National Working Committee into two groups.