Presidential election: 15 parties have fallen behind, APC, PDP can no longer win – Baba-Ahmed

The vice-presidential candidate of Labour Party, Datti Baba-Ahmed, has said that the All Progressives Congress, APC, has fallen out of the alignment of winning election in Nigeria over its choice of a Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket.

According to Datti, such a presidential ticket will not work in Nigeria, considering all the ethnoreligious complexities of the country.

The LP Vice presidential candidate believes that as much as fifteen presidential candidates going into next Saturday’s election have fallen behind, while two of the remaining three, the APC and the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, have fallen out of alignment of what it takes to win elections in Nigeria.

It is no longer news that the APC presidential candidate Bola Tinubu, who is a Yoruba Muslim, is running for the position with another Muslim from Borno, North East.

“Why today Tinubu is not the vice president of Nigeria is the same reason he cannot be president,” Baba-Ahmed said during a live appearance on Channels Television’s The 2023 Verdict on Tuesday.

“What couldn’t happen in 2015 when the then candidate Buhari asked for any nomination whatsoever from Tinubu – because that configuration has passed. It can no longer work in Nigeria. [A] Muslim-Muslin ticket cannot work anymore,” he added.

Baba-Ahmed pointed out that Nigeria is not like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Vatican, Iran, Libya or Mauritania, places that are known to be dominated by a particular religion, but a federal republic with over 250 tribes.

He further stated that “out of 18 political parties that presented presidential candidates, 15 have fallen behind.”

He added that of the other three, two have “misconfigured themselves and fallen out of alignment with the dictates of winning elections in Nigeria”.