Akin Osuntokun, the Labour Party chieftain and former aide to ex- president Olusegun Obasanjo, has said that his ex-principal may be supporting Obi for the 2023 presidential election.
Osuntokun, who is the LP South West leader disclosed this on Friday during an interview with Arise TV’s the Morning Show.
He said, “There must be rotation of power to the south and specifically to the South East, it’s a matter of conscience, it will be wrong for another northern Fulani Muslim to replace Buhari and I think there is something quite objectionable about that. The APC suffered a similar ailment with the Muslim-Muslim ticket, so those two tickets are like an option between the rock and a hard place, there is nothing to choose between them and they are coming with the specific baggage of crass insensitivity toward building a country. In terms of taking Nigeria forward, there is no way the tickets of both the APC and PDP come near to that of the Labour Party.
“I’m not going to commit him (Obasanjo), but without prejudice to other people, whoever adopts a certain position on Nigeria unity, knows that the two other candidates are antithetical, there is no way anybody can seriously talk about Nigerian unity and integration and see any value in PDP and APC. They contradict that aspiration.
“So I’m using that to tell you that I know Obasanjo’s position on Nigeria, he is likely going to have preference or sympathy for that party whose ticket is consistent with that aspiration of national unity and integration, so to that extent, we surely know.
When asked if Obasanjo is supporting Peter Obi, he said “I think so.”
“If you also look at what he has been saying, in the past few years about the situation in Nigeria, we can also see consistency from that behaviour to supporting somebody like Obi.
Osuntokun said, “In terms of evaluation from what is good and moving Nigeria forward, you cannot proceed from the platforms of APC and PDP. These parties aren’t consistent with what Nigerians need. So it’s only right to move away from the rotten status quo in the interest of the country.”
