Eniola Yekini
The All Progressives Congress, APC, Presidential Campaign Council has called on former Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, to withdraw from the 2027 presidential race.
The Council said the call was in line with Obi’s earlier pledge to quit the race if it was proven that his administration as Governor of Anambra State left financial liabilities.
The spokesman of the Council, Dele Alake, made the call in a statement on Friday while reacting to Obi’s recent interview with the BBC.
During the interview, Obi had maintained that he won the 2023 presidential election, saying: “I won the last election. There’s no evidence, but I won the election. Everything is not based on evidence.”
Alake described the claim as baseless and troubling, arguing that Obi was disregarding facts and evidence.
He noted that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, declared President Bola Tinubu winner of the 2023 election with 8,794,726 votes, while Atiku Abubakar of the PDP polled 6,984,520 votes and Obi came third with 6,101,533 votes.
He added that both the Presidential Election Petitions Court on September 6, 2023 and the Supreme Court on October 26, 2023 upheld Tinubu’s victory after Obi challenged the result.
“We again call on Peter Obi to act honourably and honour his earlier pledge to exit the 2027 presidential race if it is proven that his administration left behind liabilities in Anambra State, a fact now clearly established by the state’s financial records,” Alake said.
In a related development, former Edo State Governor, Senator Adams Oshiomhole, said he does not consider Obi an enemy despite their political differences.
Speaking during an interview with Symfoni TV on Thursday, Oshiomhole said both of them suffered political opposition as governors under different parties.
“Peter Obi is not my enemy. We both suffered at some point as governors. I was ACN, he was APGA. We were both oppressed by PDP federal might,” he said.
He explained that his invitation to Obi to commission a project in Edo was not a political endorsement but a recognition that political disagreement should not hinder development.