Tinubu, Atiku, Obi Will Battle Lagos Votes – Momodu

By Gbenga Oloniniran

A spokesman for the Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Council, Dele Momodu, has said votes in the forthcoming presidential election in Lagos State will be split among candidates in the PDP, the All Progressives Congress and the Labour Party, Atiku Abubakar, Bola Tinubu and Peter Obi respectively.

Momodu said this on Arise TV Morning Show, where he also said ethnicity would play a major role in the elections.

Claiming Atiku is the only candidate with footprints in other parts of Nigeria, he described Obi as a third force, saying Obi and Tinubu however had strongholds in southern Nigeria.

“The two in the South will fight themselves; one in the South-East, one in the South-West. Atiku does not suffer that kind of challenge.

“Tinubu is the only candidate whose base is shaking. I can tell you that in Lagos, three people are going to split Lagos; Tinubu, Atiku and Obi,” Momodu said.

In the interview, Momodu also said the supporters of Obi are now seeing the importance of (political) structure.

“The Obidients are beginning to see the importance of structure. Structure is not something out of this world, it is a needed requirement. How many governors have you got, which is what Tinubu is banking on that ‘my governors will help me’. How many senators or senatorial candidates does Atiku have? How many people for House Representatives, and how many for the House of Assembly? They haven’t got much of that.

“You are also going to need agents nationwide, thousands of them. That will form part of structures,” he said.

He said he wondered how the Obi camp would compete with the PDP which had been in existence for a long time and already had structures.

“If you say ‘we don’t pay ‘shi shi’, you can see how people are moving away in droves in some of these smaller parties because the structures are not there. The structures also include the funding of each of those structures.

“We shall see in the next one week what will happen. The polls will not help Obi. If they like, let one million say Obi is going to win,” Momodu added.

The Punch

reports that there have been criticisms from rival parties that Obi’s supporters are more dominant online than in the physical. However, the LP has dismissed this several times, especially with Obi maintaining that the party would defeat the people claiming to have structures.

Early January, the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council urged Nigerians to ignore what it called the “opposition’s orchestrated propaganda” that it does not have polling agents in core northern states.

The spokesman for the LP campaign council, Yunusa Tanko, stated this in a release issued in reaction to an earlier report dismissing the chances of the party for having inadequate agents to man all polling units across the country.

According to Mr Tanko, the Labour Party has foot soldiers “to man all polling units in the North and the entire nation.”

He stated that “the opposition’s gimmicks to weaken the resolved minds of Nigerians to vote Peter Obi and Datti Baba-Ahmed into power this year will not fly.”

Source: The Punch