Obasanjo’s Support For Peter Obi Is Worthless, Says Tinubu

The support of Peter Obi by former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s Labour Party (LP) rival, according to Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the presidential candidate for the current All Progressives Congress (APC), is “worthless.”

In a first reaction, Tinubu acknowledged that the former president had every democratic right to support anybody via Bayo Onanuga, the director of media and publicity.

The APC standard bearer said that no one could depend on Obasanjo’s backing to be governor or councillor, not even in his native state of Ogun, where the former president’s adopted candidates had previously lost elections.

Part of the statement said, “Following calls from journalists from several media companies who requested our comment, we decided to issue this preliminary statement, even though we didn’t think the alleged endorsement had any significance.

“We appreciate former President Obasanjo’s democratic freedom to back and endorse any candidate in any election.

Any astute political observer in Nigeria understands that Chief Obasanjo’s preference for Peter Obi is predictable, barring the official announcement he made in his new year’s greeting.

“He had already expressed his views at a number of public gatherings, the most recent being the 70th birthday celebration of Chief John Nwodo, a former leader of the Ohaneze Ndigbo, in Enugu.

Since Obasanjo is known for consistently opposing progressive political forces, as he did against MKO Abiola in 1993, we make the bold claim that our party and candidate, Aswáj Bola Ahmed Tinubu, won’t lose sleep over the move.

The endorsement is essentially useless since the former President has no political influence or goodwill in Nigeria to influence anybody to win a council election, never alone a presidential one. He is a symbolic political weight.