Senate Minority Leader Abba Moro, a chieftain of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), says the party regrets fielding Atiku Abubakar as its presidential candidate in the 2023 elections.
Moro, a senator representing Benue South in the National Assembly, stated this on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
“As a result of how the election turned out and because the Nigerian people spoke, definitely, it (fielding Atiku) was an error,” the Senate Minority Leader said on Tuesday.
“To lose a monumental election in that disastrous manner is certainly regrettable.”
The PDP lost the presidential election to the All Progressives Congress (APC), coming second in the exercise won by Bola Tinubu, the then-flagbearer of the ruling APC.
About two years after that defeat, Atiku dumped the PDP and has yet to announce his new party.
Though the 2027 general polls are barely two years away, there are rumours that the main opposition wants to persuade former President Goodluck Jonathan and ex-Anambra State governor, Peter Obi, to return to its fold.
Since Jonathan lost to ex-President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015, he has kept a low profile as he has not been seen at public functions within the PDP.
Similarly, Obi, who was Atiku’s running mate in the 2019 elections, dumped the PDP for the Labour Party, where he later secured its presidential ticket for the 2023 polls.
He was said to have been frustrated out of the PDP, a claim that Moro corroborated.
But Moro said ongoing talks were to persuade the duo to join the presidential race.
He added, “So, in the run-up to 2027, I am aware certain individuals have been talking to Peter Obi, ‘Hey, come back home, this is what we are likely to do, and if you come, you stand a chance of being the candidate,” Moro said on the show.
When asked about ex-President Jonathan returning to the PDP, Senator Moro said, “Some persons are talking to the former president to come and run. It is possible”.
Talks Ongoing For Obi, Jonathan To Join Presidential Race — Moro
Moro has also hinted at the possibility of Peter Obi and ex-President Goodluck Jonathan returning to the party and joining the presidential race.
“So, in the run-up to 2027, I am aware certain individuals have been talking to Peter Obi, ‘Hey, come back home, this is what we are likely to do, and if you come, you stand a chance of being the candidate,” Moro said on the show.
When asked about the possibility of ex-President Jonathan returning to the PDP, Senator Moro of Benue South said, “Some persons are talking to the former president to come and run. It is a possibility”.
Jonathan served as president under the PDP from 2011 to 2015. The former Bayelsa governor took over from his boss, Musa Yar’Adua, following the latter’s death in 2010.
He contested under the PDP the following year and was elected as president. However, Jonathan lost to ex-President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015, becoming the first incumbent to be defeated in an election since the return of democracy in 1999.
Since then, there have been calls on him to throw his hat into the ring for the presidency, although Jonathan is yet to comment on the matter or declare his interest in the country’s number one seat, which he left in 2015.
Like the former president, Obi is a former member of the PDP. He was the party’s vice presidential candidate in the 2019 elections before resigning in the build-up to the 2023 polls.
Ahead of that election, the former governor of Anambra State took an unfamiliar route, teaming up with the relatively known Labour Party (LP). Obi, whose candidacy appealed to Nigeria’s youthful demography, flew the party’s flag in that exercise.
