Ifeanyi Okowa, the outgoing Governor of Delta State and the 2023 vice presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has stated that a northerner could have succeeded President Muhammadu Buhari if Peter Obi had not left the PDP. According to Okowa, the PDP had analyzed and concluded that the best way to counter the All Progressives Congress (APC) from getting massive bloc votes in the 2023 elections was to present a northern candidate with a southern running mate.
The party had thrown its presidential ticket open with several candidates jostling for the position. A former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, eventually emerged as the PDP candidate. However, the Delta State Governor said the decision of Peter Obi, a former Governor of Anambra State, to join the race for the ticket threw up southeast and religious sentiments. Obi’s eventual decision to dump the PDP for the Labour Party affected the votes of the PDP.
According to Okowa, the northern presidency would have succeeded if Obi had not left the PDP. “I belong to the PDP and for me as a person and for the majority of the people in the PDP, they believed that our pathway to victory was to have a northern candidate and a southern vice,” he said. “Why? Because we were not a majority.”
He added that “the only thing that turned our reasoning out was when Obi came out from the south-east and there were a lot of feelings that came in among the Christians.” Okowa’s statement suggests that Obi’s candidacy led to a shift in the party’s strategy, which ultimately affected the outcome of the election.
The PDP has been struggling to regain power at the national level since it lost the presidential election in 2015. The party had hoped that the 2019 election would provide an opportunity to return to power, but it lost again to the APC. The party is currently working to reposition itself ahead of the 2023 election, and Okowa’s statement suggests that the party is still grappling with its strategy for the upcoming election.
