2027: Obi Can’t Penetrate The North, Tinubu Has Structures – Keyamo
Amid early permutations and combinations ahead of the 2027 presidential election, Festus Keyamo, one of the vocal ministers in the President Bola Tinubu cabinet, has said that opposition arrowhead Peter Obi cannot penetrate northern Nigeria and garner votes like the incumbent.
Keyamo, who was a guest on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics programme, said Tinubu and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), have political structures in place in northern Nigeria.
The aviation minister also said the opposition coalition floated on the platform of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) won’t go far.
Keyamo said, “They are going nowhere in terms of demography.
“I like what is happening; they are putting us on our toes; it is going to make us work harder, but the numbers are not looking good for them
“This so-called ADC, in 2027, what they are working on is to bring Peter Obi and Atiku (Abubakar) together to join those numbers and beat our over eight million votes.
“Let me tell you why it is wrong. If you make Peter Obi the deputy to Atiku, three demographic factors delivered Peter Obi in 2023, but the three will collapse.”
Keyamo listed the three factors he felt worked in favour of Obi in 2023. “The other candidates were Muslims, and so there was only one Christian candidate, and the Christians went to one candidate,” he said.
“The South-East felt cheated, so the South-East went to one point because of the Igbo man.
“And the third demography: the Obidients, young Nigerians who felt they were angry, they wanted a younger person and all of that because the other candidates were older than him (Obi).
“If you put Peter Obi this time as president, he cannot penetrate the north. We have our structures in the north. We have governors and our structures in the north.”
This man talks without the hinge sight of the last presidential election.
Did Tinubu not have structures that were very solid in lagos state,his own state,yet Peter Obi defeated him outrightly in lagos state?
So it is not a matter of structure,it is the issue of what the electorate wants now, which is the candidate that has a better message for them and better character to lead them out of the woods that the present APC government has plunged Nigeria.
Secondly how does Keyamo say that Tinubu has structure in the north.
That is a fallacy. Tinubu only rode on the structure of late President Buhari to make inroad into the north.
He has no significant structure in the north and most the people who share in Buhari’s northern structure like Governor El Rufai have distanced themselves from Tinubu and his presidency because of his poor showing in governance which has impoverished the north.
Whereas Peter Obi has since the last election made substantial inroads into the north with his message of hope, accountability,and need to turn Nigeria into a productive state as opposed to a consumption state.
So it is very obvious that Tinubu will fail very woefully in the north this time around unless APC does what they know how to do best which is their ignoble and criminal rigging of all elections in Nigeria.