Afrigather Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola has stated that the three principal opponents of his get together throughout the Presidential election gave away their victory to the President-Elect, Bola Tinubu by leaving the Peoples Democratic Social gathering (PDP) after the 2019 presidential election.
Life-style Nigeria stories that the previous Lagos State Governor, who spoke on Channels Tv’s Sunday Politics, stated the Peter Obi of the Labour Social gathering (LP), PDP’s Atiku Abubakar and Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New nigeria Folks’s Social gathering (NNPP) all belonged to the identical get together, the PDP, in 2019 however they separated in the direction of the 2023 presidential ballot which gave the All Progressives Congress (APC) an opportunity to victory.
He stated, “Politics is a sport of numbers and numbers have arithmetic equations – additions and multiplications. APC was including and multiplying. Some PDP governors – Cross River, Ebonyi, Zamfara – had come to hitch APC. PDP was dividing and subtracting.
“So, the foremost contenders towards us on this election – NNPP, PDP, Labour Social gathering, their candidates, have been in the identical get together in 2019. They misplaced by nearly 4 million votes. So, having now divided that insufficient, inadequate ticket into three, how was it going so as to add up into an electoral victory?
“So, they handed away the presidential ticket by dividing their powers. Not solely did they divide, they now subtracted with the G5 governors. So, it was dangerous arithmetic.”
In March 2022, Kwankwaso, a former governor of Kano State, dumped the PDP, the second time period he did so in eight years. He had first left the get together in November 2013 and joined the APC. He, nonetheless, rejoined the PDP in July 2018.
Equally, Obi, a former Anambra State Governor below the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), had joined the PDP and ran as Atiku’s operating mate within the 2019 presidential ballot. Obi, nonetheless, left the PDP in 2022 to safe the ticket of the Labour Social gathering.
The minister, who headed the Election Planning Directorate of the Tinubu-Shettima marketing campaign, stated his get together concentrated its power on states the place it had excessive possibilities.
Within the 2019 ballot, President Muhammadu Buhari of the APC gained his re-election bid as he polled 15,191,847 votes to defeat his closest opponent, Atiku, who scored polled 11,262,978 to lose the election with a margin of three,928,869 votes.
For the 2023 election, Tinubu gained in 12 of nigeria’s 36 states, and secured vital numbers in a number of different states to say the very best variety of votes — 8,794,726, nearly two million votes greater than his closest rival — former Vice President Atiku, who obtained 6,984,520 votes, whereas Obi polled 6,101,533. Kwankwaso completed fourth with 1,496,687 votes.
