Presidential poll: Obi, Kwankwaso’s negotiations dead, says Okupe

The Director-General of the Obi Presidential Campaign Organisation, Dr Doyin Okupe, has announced that the planned alliance between the Labour Party and the New Nigerian People’s Party for the 2023 general election is “dead.”

According to Okupe, who is the placeholder as running mate to the LP presidential candidate and former Governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, said the plan had been dead since about four weeks ago.

The LP had planned an alliance with the NNPP, with Obi and the latter’s presidential candidate, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso, being on the same ticket.

Speaking on Politics Today, a current affairs programme on Channels Television, Okupe, on Tuesday night, disclosed that the negotiation became deadlocked when the LP side queried the emergence of another Muslim northerner succeeding the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), a Muslim from the North.

On the reported consideration of Senator Ditti Baba-Ahmed as vice-presidential candidate of the LP, Okupe said, “He is being considered, others are being considered. These things will be decided this week. He is being considered along with other people whom we have engaged and we have talked with.

“The emphasis here is this, we are looking for a young, vibrant politician of northern extraction with a measure of intellect, sound background, pedigree and education. That is what we are looking at.”

On the alliance between LP and NNPP, with the rating of Kwankwaso as senior to Obi to be the presidential and vice-presidential candidates, respectively, Okupe asked how seniority is measured in politics.

Okupe also took a swipe at Kwankwaso for claiming that northern electorate would not vote for presidential candidate from the South-East.