The All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council has dismissed former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s endorsement of Labour Party (LP) candidate Peter Obi as a “political joke”, saying it will have no impact on the election outcome.
In a statement, the Director of Media and Publicity of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Bayo Onanuga, said that Obasanjo’s endorsement was “worthless” as the former president “does not possess any political goodwill or leverage anywhere in Nigeria to make anyone win a councillorship election let alone win a presidential election.”
Onanuga went on to say that Obasanjo is “not a political force, even in his part of the country”, and expressed confidence that the former president would not be able to win his polling unit or ward for the LP candidate in Abeokuta.
He also pointed out that Obasanjo had similarly endorsed the Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, in the 2019 election, which resulted in a decisive victory for current President Muhammadu Buhari.
Despite Obasanjo’s endorsement, Onanuga said that APC candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu will defeat Obi “by a large margin” in the upcoming election.
He added that Tinubu is a “progressive political force” and called on young Nigerians to “grasp the opportunity” to elect him as president.
Onanuga also criticized Obasanjo’s record as a democrat, saying that he had used “coercive instruments of the State” to “railroad people into elective offices against the will of Nigerians as expressed at the polls” in past elections.
