A prominent Peoples Democratic Party leader, Segun Sowunmi, has called for urgent moves to reintegrate Labour Party’s 2023 presidential candidate Peter Obi into the PDP fold, while cautioning that ongoing opposition coalition talks may be designed to capitalize on Obi’s mass appeal ahead of 2027 elections.
The former PDP spokesperson raised these concerns during an appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Friday, referencing Obi’s 2022 defection from PDP to Labour Party over alleged delegate corruption and systemic marginalization of Southeast interests.
“One of the people who was a PDP member, a South eastern man who felt, based on the balance of play that the South-East was excluded, Peter Obi, was allocated 6.2 million votes. You lose the election, you run to the Supreme Court, you lose, at least you were adjudged to have lost,” Sowunmi stated.
“Any deep-thinking, fair-minded Nigerian man who is in the political party called the PDP ought to know that the greatest, necessary next step is to have the conversation about: ‘How do you bring Peter back’ now that the energy driving him is organic.”
The PDP stalwart lambasted his party’s post-2023 leadership crisis and defections to the ruling APC as self-sabotage, warning that underestimating President Bola Tinubu’s political acumen would be disastrous.
“There is a level of activity that you can blame your bullies for, but there is a certain level of recurring, continuous lack of creativity that you have to hold yourself responsible for,” he said.
“One of the things that people do is fall prey to the frail nature of President Bola Tinubu. I know him for his intellectual capacity. He will look frail, but his brain is that of a giant, so most times people underestimate him to their own peril. The painful thing is that my own side is choosing to pretend that it is an easy material to defeat in politics. What do they know that he doesn’t know?”
Sowunmi issued stark warnings about the proposed opposition coalition reportedly involving Obi, Atiku Abubakar and Nasir El-Rufai – with claims of a one-year power transfer deal to Obi as running mate. He dismissed the arrangement as a self-serving gambit.
“The fundamentals by which you build a movement to rescue a nation can’t be predominantly too selfish. All that talks they’re making about coalition, they are just trying to take advantage of Peter Obi and it’s his business if he allows them to take advantage of him.”