Labaran Maku, a former Information and National Orientation Minister, stated that many considered the ‘Obidient’ movement and Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate Peter Obi as a joke, but that young people proved them wrong by putting up an extraordinary showing in the 2023 elections.
Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, stunned the nation by running as a third-party candidate. Despite being criticised for lacking a political structure, the LP candidate, who has a large young following, received over six million votes and won in 11 states, finishing third in the just finished election.
However, when asked about the fate of the 2023 elections on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, Mr Maku stated that the opposition lawmakers never offered the LP their support.
The Nasarawa State PDP chieftain acknowledged that his party lost the state’s presidential vote to the LP, but he argued that the All Progressives Congress (APC)’s victory in the governorship election was invalid because, in his opinion, the results of the governorship election announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were rigged.
READ ALSO: Court Barred Ayu From Parading Himself As PDP Chairman
“What happened in the presidential election as you could see was that there was this wave of young people, the ‘Obidients’ that we all took for granted and we were thinking Peter Obi was a joke. Where would he go?” the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain said on the breakfast show Tuesday.
“So, both PDP and the APC, we were thinking ‘This man does not have structure. He will not be able to do so much’.”
“But the young people seized the initiative from the politicians. And for the first time – what we saw in Nasarawa, Edo, several other places, and in Delta State where the PDP vice presidential candidate comes from – we saw that young people were serious about what they were doing and they took advantage of social media to project a programme which has shaken the nation.”
