Lawyer and public affairs pundit Jesutega Onokpasa has stated that he doesn’t think the candidates running for president in 2023—Peter Obi of the Labour Party and Atiku Abubakar of the PDP—can persuade him that they didn’t know they had “cancelled each other out.”
In an interview with TVC, Onokpasa contended that Obi and Atiku’s decision to run for the presidency under different political parties weakened their electoral prospects and ultimately led to their defeat. He suggested that they might have had a better chance of winning the election if they had formed a united front.
In Onokpasa’s words: “Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar can’t convince me that he is unaware he lost this election, and Peter Obi can’t persuade me that he doesn’t know deep down that he lost the election. Peter Obi and Atiku can’t convince me that they are oblivious to the fact that they effectively neutralized each other. They couldn’t have won the election.
“There was a perception that if they had joined forces, they might have defeated Bola Tinubu. It’s not a guarantee, but it was their best shot at winning the election. Peter Obi stepping aside for Atiku, perhaps as a running mate, would have been their best approach. However, by running independently, they could never have achieved it.”
