A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Segun Sowunmi, has shared insights regarding the possibility of the candidates to fly the party’s presidential ticket for the 2027 elections.
Speaking on the best candidate combination to go up against the potential candidate of President Bola Tinubu in 2027, Sowunmi said the PDP has to consider the dynamics of election in Nigeria.
During an interview with Daily Post published on Friday, the PDP stalwart was asked about the possibility of having a ticket featuring Atiku Abubakar along with Peter Obi, Nyesom Wike, or Bukola Saraki.
While submitting that no election is the same as a previous one, Sowunmi noted that four years is a long time for the electorates to have changed their minds or make up their minds on particular candidates.
According to him, whoever would eventually emerge as the PDP presidential candidate would be determined by the primary elections at the right time, but any aspirant interested in flying the party’s flag should be busy doing the polls, benchmarking, deep diving, going around the country listening well to where the people are, and not just rely on social media permutations.
Particularly, on the probability of an Atiku-Obi ticket, the former Ogun PDP governorship candidate said the fact that both men got good numbers in the 2023 elections does not automatically mean they would retain the good numbers if they come together for the 2027 elections.
Responding to the question, Sowunmi said: “You have asked a good question; in the 2023 election, if we had been wise and gone with the Atiku-Wike ticket, we may have been very lucky. You know that a hypothesis that is not tested is still a hypothesis.
“In terms of the Atiku-Obi, we tried it in 2019 and we know what happened then; people like to say that the number Peter got in the last election and the number Atiku got you may just combine them and get the outcome you want. I put too much effort in this election-related analysis to buy that kind of jargon, some of those numbers are mutually exclusive, there are people who will get up because of Peter Obi and will not get up because of any other person, there are people who will get up for Atiku and not agree to Peter and of course, there are people intercepting in the middle for both of them; how large will that number be? I do not know.
“I always tell people that every election you have to start all over again. You sew a garment for me and after four years, if you are smart you have to re-measure the person so that you can get a fit-for-purpose garment. If you assume that it’s just a combination and you are holding your breath until when you get to the next election and perpetually everything will be just as it is in the last election, then you will get the misery of a lazy person who does not want to deal with the hard work of listening to the electorates to know exactly where they are.
“The dynamics may be completely different, and the issues may be different. If at all Tinubu is having problems which I’m not saying; maybe he will be looking at the North where they may have some very big issues as to the votes they contributed the last time even from his APC and probably how they are being treated. I’m not sure you can find that kind of hatred in the Southern part of the country now, not even in the Southeast. When you go to the Southeast now, you will be fooling yourself to say that you don’t understand that they had more space than they ever had before and you will be deceiving yourself by saying that they don’t have a bigger political gladiators and it will be foolish and foolhardy that if they take a position that the South wants to do eight years, it will be foolhardy to think that if it becomes a game between a North and Southern man, the South will not go with their Southern brother.
“These are simulations and assumptions, but I’m just saying that anybody who wants to run elections in 2027, should be busy doing the polls, benchmarking, deep diving, going around the country listening well to where the people are, social media are not the greatest assessment of people because we have not seen a commensurate vote on the ground as you can use the off seasons to measure.”
On a potential Atiku-Saraki ticket, Sowunmi said it may be difficult to fly such ticket as it would mean both the flag bearer and the running mate would be from the same region. He however didn’t rule out the possibility of having one of them as the eventual candidate of the PDP for the 2027 elections.
In his words, “The truth about the Atiku-Saraki ticket is that it’s very difficult because it technically means that you are staying in the upper Niger to pick two candidates, maybe one of them would be a candidate while we look for someone to back the person up in the Southern part. But we can’t put a Southwest and Southsouth man that would be difficult, what would happen is that yes you can say Atiku can be a candidate, then you back him up with someone in the South or Bukola will be a candidate and we back him up with someone from the South.
“I have never thought of it that way though, but we can bring back Bukola Saraki and Peter Obi; and like I said, my position is very clear and it’s ambiguous, there are 220 million people in this country and you can’t be screaming the name of only three people to be president of Nigeria. Our challenges have reached a point where we have to look deeply as to what they are offering beyond rhetoric, because it seems that we are not happy with any president.”
The PDP chieftain added that whoever eventually emerges as the PDP candidate or whatever combination the party decides to throw up, a lot of work would have to be done to unseat Tinubu.
He said: “For political parties, there is no assumption that just by popularity they would win elections, elections are far more scientific, deeper, penetrating, and for anything they want to say, they have to contend with the fact that Tinubu knows whatever they think they know in politics, whatever they think they can do and scheme in politics, he also can because he’s a politician; and it would be the dumbest thing to think that the only thing they have against him is tribalism because they would be shocked at the kind of human capital he has in other parts of the country, what if those ones stand in the gap for him? So deciding who would be the candidate is far more detailed, deliberate, painstaking, and deep analysis of what the citizens are saying.”
Sowunmi also emphasized in his response, the need to realize that the final decision is down to Nigerians, who would go to the polls to determine their leader. He, however charged the PDP to ensure it presents credible candidates for election.
“Do the citizens want a Southern president? Are they ready for another Fulani four years after one Fulani? All of these questions must be asked and anybody who deceives himself that without doing a deep-down analysis and benchmark and they would win the general elections, I don’t know how that would happen. Some of us who are the younger generation are now beginning to get a bit worried, they should not think that we can’t tell them which way, if they want to be mad, let’s all be mad together,” the former Atiku campaign spokesperson said.