Yunusa Tanko, the spokesperson to the 2023 Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has denied any merger talks with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Recall that the Deputy National spokesman for the PDP, Ibrahim Abdullahi, had publicly announced on a live political programme that the three leading opposition figures in Nigeria were discussing the possibility of a merger to salvage Nigerians from hunger and insecurity ahead of the 2027 presidential election.
Abdullahi’s submission was confirmed by Atiku Abubakar’s media adviser, Paul Ibe.
Ibe, while speaking to Punch, claimed that Atiku has being consistent about the call for a merger.
He said, “Atiku has been consistent about an alliance of the opposition. His position has become more pertinent than ever because Nigeria, as it is currently under Tinubu’s administration, is on life support. We have had failings of trial and error policies. Hunger is the order of the day, even among his supporters.”
However, Yunusa denied the claims, insisting that his principal, Peter Obi was more focused on consolidating his political base.
Speaking to the aforementioned publication, Yunusa stated that talks of a merger were coming up again because political permutations have begun and the stakes for the 2027 presidential election are high.
He said they were flattered by the move, but Peter Obi had learned from the last election’s mistakes and would prefer to build on his structure nationwide.
According to him, “I heard about the merger discussion. But what we are interested in doing now basically is to build on our nationwide structure. You can take that one to the bank. In fact, we just want to have the bulk of our people everywhere because some of the things we observed in the last election were our inability to have the right people on the ground.
“We depended on some persons who failed us, but now we want to have our people. I hope you are aware that the Obidient Movement is everywhere. It cuts across political parties. So that makes us bigger and stronger. Some of them are in PDP, APC and everywhere.
“Anybody interested in good governance is an Obidient person because what the movement is up against is bad governance. That is all. We don’t have any agenda apart from that.”