Dele Momodu, publisher of Ovation International, has categorically stated that the voting patterns witnessed during the 2023 general elections have changed. He said that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu might not get up to three million votes if he allows a free and fair election, news.ng reports.
Momodu said this in an interview on Channels Television on Wednesday.
You may recall that in the 2023 presidential election results, President Tinubu got 8,794,726 votes, while former Vice President Atiku Abubakar garnered 6,984,520 votes.
Other candidates, Peter Obi, who contested on the platform of the Labour Party (LP), polled 6,101,533 votes, while Rabiu Kwankwaso, who represented the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), got 1,496,687 votes.
Meanwhile, Momodu, a chieftain of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), questioned what guarantees that these candidates, if allowed to represent their parties again, will retain the number of votes they got in 2023, arguing that the situation has changed.
He stated, “Are you saying that Tinubu will retain all the eight-point-something million people that voted for him last time? How are you sure that Atiku will retain all those who voted for him last time? What is the guarantee that Obi and Kwankwaso are the only people who will retain all those who voted for them last time? The situation has changed.
“Tinubu today, if he allows a free and fair election, might not even get three million votes.”
He further explained that some of the outgoing governors who were in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), despite being in charge of their respective states, lost their senatorial seats.
He extended an invitation to members of the public to join the ADC, saying the party is focused.
He added that those who do not want to join the ADC should not force the idea on the party that it is only when a particular figure is in it that victory is guaranteed.
The media mogul recalled how Atiku and Obi contested on the platform of the PDP, which they lost to the APC, noting that now that they are not together, it should not create panic within the party.
According to him, “Despite all the governors, we saw how three out of five G5 governors in their states, in Enugu, in Abia, in Benue State, how they lost just senatorial seats. They couldn’t even guarantee senatorial seats from their states. So, for us at ADC, we’re focused; we are steadfast.
“Those who want to join should join. Those who don’t want to join, you cannot succumb to blackmail that, “Oh, only one man can make us win.” In 2019, Atiku and Obi joined, they did not win. In 2023, they went their separate ways, they did not win. So why would you panic?
Reacting to the recent defection of Obi from the ADC to the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) on Sunday, Momodu recalled that it took the effort of President Tinubu to merge various political parties to give birth to the APC.
“Stop running from whatever is chasing you because you might run into what is chasing you.” So just stay. Now they all agreed because government chased them, not that they all wanted to work together from the beginning.
“You should remember that it was Tinubu who formed all of them together, and that is why they all moved in one direction, which would have been beautiful because it would have been like a two-party race, like it happened during Abiola and Bashir Tofa,” he added.
