The Lamidi Apapa-led faction of the Labour Party (LP) has backed Professor Wole Soyinka’s claims that its 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, did not win the February 25 election.
The faction made this known in a statement on Saturday, made available by the spokesperson of the faction, Abayomi Arabambi, in support of the comment made by the Nobel Laureate, on the 2023 presidential election.
According to Arabambi, Obi and the factional National Chairman, Julius Abure, knew the truth about the performance of the party at the presidential election, adding that President Bola Tinubu won the election.
He revealed that the party sees the reaction of the Abure faction to Soyinka’s statement as nothing but “affront and abuse from a rude boy to his grandfather”.
Arabambi asserted that the party, in its preparation towards the 2023 elections, had poor logistics, no party agents in the majority of the polling units and suffered dearly for it.
He claimed that the party has been reduced to a regional party under Obi and that he is only interested in national officers of Igbo extraction.
The statement reads: “It is condemnable and highly disturbing that rather than going back to the drawing board to meticulously examine where things have fallen apart and re-strategize for 2027 elections, some irredentist masquerading as members of the Labour Party have chosen to attack the highly revered scholar for only re-echoing the truth that is not hidden to discerning Nigerians.
“Even Prof. Charles Soludo, the governor of Anambra State, where Obi hailed from, had also said in the past that the probability of Obi clinching third position in the presidential race was very slim, not to talk of winning the elections.
READ MORE: Peter Obi Still Forcing Lies, Deceit For A Party That Came Third — Soyinka
“As a party, we knew that Professor Wole Soyinka was right in his submission because how does anyone claim to have won an election based solely on pejoratives, assumption, vague rhetorics and zero evidence pointing to such being the case, but on the expectation that the actual winner would be disqualified and by some stroke of black magic, the candidate in the 3rd place will suddenly be declared winner without any proof of having scored the majority vote is absolute judicial madness on display by Peter Obi, Julius Abure and their blind allies.
“We know we lost that election; it was true Obi and Abure wanted to do ‘gbajue’ because ab initio, even when the Presidential campaign council was formed, in the North, Peter Obi uses Igbo as State Coordinators while northerner remains their deputies.
“That’s why we failed woefully. Imagine somebody that has no polling unit result sheet, and no agents in the majority of the polling units now turn around to claim election victory. So, how then do we say we won?
“Labour Party has been reduced to a regional party under him as he is only interested in National officers of Igbo extraction.”
