Datti Baba-Ahmed, a former vice-presidential candidate of the Labour Party, said former Vice President Atiku Abubakar would have won the 2027 presidency if he had supported Peter Obi in the 2023 presidential poll.
Baba-Ahmed made this known last night in an interview with Channels Television. He said if Atiku had been patient and acted like President Bola Tinubu, who gave others the political platform to contest presidential elections, he (Baba-Ahmed) would have agreed to step down in 2027 and urged Peter Obi to do same.
“If in 2023 elections, he surprised everybody, played the way Tinubu would normally play, called Peter Obi and I and said, ‘Hey guys, you are my juniors, I’ll support you guys. ‘No 2027 for you,’ Wallahi, I would have agreed and said Peter Obi should agree and Atiku would have become the 2027 President of Nigeria if it had so happened.
“But once they get in that trance, they tend to see themselves as president,” he observed.
The former federal lawmaker said Tinubu was not afraid of waiting as he presented his party’s presidential platform to leaders like Atiku in 2007 and the late former President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015.
He (Tinubu) didn’t mind planning for that long. When he brought Atiku on the platform in 2007, we realised what he was doing, it was not time for the South-West only.
“Uncle Tinubu does that a lot, he knows how to tie you with your own rope. “You just served eight years as vice president. You wanna go to my party? “Please, take my party.
“And he used it against him in the 2023 elections, because you tell those people that this is the man I gave a platform and he has already promised me that whenever it’s my turn, he will not challenge,” the former vice presidential candidate added.
“That is enough for the deciders to read the judgement that was delivered. Then he did another in 2011. Then he met Baba Buhari in 2015. Then he figured that since now it’s North for eight years, like I said, he’s been patient.
“And that patience, they don’t have it in this group (coalition) except Amaechi. Amaechi looks to have been waiting his time but the true topshot over there, if only he was able to wait, measure, play things out,” he added.
Baba-Ahmed however warned the opposition alliance against “too much excitement” saying Tinubu knows the game the coalition is playing and will unscrew any strategy by the coalition.
“This coalition didn’t have a Buhari. “And I told them, if you don’t have a good outlier, it’s going to be hard for people to rally around him. Did they hear me? They were insulted.”
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