Spokesperson of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Committee, Festus Keyamo, in his post-mortem analysis of the February 25 presidential election on TVC Politics Tonight monitored by David Lawani, says the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, unconsciously worked for Bola Tinubu’s victory
How would you describe the battle of your candidate emerging as the winner of the February 25 presidential election?
It is congratulations to all Nigerians because the eventual winner of the election, President-elect, Senator Bola Tinubu, actually got his mandate from cross sections of Nigeria- the North, South, East, and West. He had votes from all parts of the country. The battle was fierce. Nigerians saw that themselves. It was a bit hot and at times tricky, but at the end of the day, God has a purpose for this country. He has a purpose for Asiwaju who is President-elect. So, we give God thanks.
Despite the huge challenge, how did APC win the presidential election?
I am sure you have tried to look at the results of the election. It is clear that despite all the noise going on by the opposition, the voting pattern revealed by the results shows the type of campaigns carried out by some candidates of other parties. Now, we simply won the election. We presented a pan-Nigerian candidate in the person of Senator Bola Tinubu. Asiwaju won his votes from all six regions of the country. It was only Asiwaju that won at least one state in five different regions in the country except, of course, one particular region. The three leading candidates have 12 states each. PDP’s Atiku Abubakar had nine states in the North and three in the South. LP’s Peter Obi had nine states in the south and three in the North Central not even in the core north, but Asiwaju Bola Tinubu had six states in the North and six states in the south. It clearly shows the kind of balance votes that they had in different parts of the country. Again, if you look at the results from different parts of the country, Asiwaju won three regions out rightly. Atiku had only one region. Then Peter Obi won two regions. In all the regions, Asiwaju came second at least. He never took third. That is why he won the election because even in regions, where he didn’t win, he came a close second. In the regions he won, he won by a wide margin. For example, the South West Region. So, Asiwaju was the only candidate that had the votes across Nigeria. He received his votes from different sections and demography in Nigeria. While other candidates could not get certain parts of Nigeria. It is no surprise therefore that only Asiwaju could achieve the constitutional requirement of two third of the states in Nigeria. I think Asiwaju got one-quarter in 30 states. Atiku Abubakar got about 21, while Peter Obi got 16 or 17 of the required one-quarter of the votes in those states. So, it is obvious there was only one winner at the end of the day. There were no two. There was nobody who came close. There is even nobody whether they go to court or not to claim the mandate. Nobody can claim that.
What was responsible for your party’s results in Kano and Lagos?
Well, various factors are responsible. The Kano situation was very obvious. They had a son of the soil running, Rabiu Kwankwaso. Naturally, by the sentiments, going by our political terrain, they went with their son, but then, there is something very important about it. Despite going with their son, a large portion of the Kano indigenes still saw Asiwaju as their own. It was even Atiku Abubakar who is a Northerner that they didn’t even vote for. He could not even get 10 per cent of the votes in Kano. That is very significant. The difference between Asiwaju which came second in Kano and Atiku was quite significant. The Lagos votes were attributed to the fact that we had a mixture of different ethnicity and different types of people in the state. You cannot say really that the state accommodates a particular ethnic group. So, Lagos is a mixture of different ethnic groups with different religions, despite that, you can see that the difference was not even too much. Even in areas, Asiwaju supposedly lost, it was very close. Asiwaju is grounded in all parts of the country.
What happens to your state in Delta, are you surprised at what turned out?
No, of course, we knew beforehand the Lagos Party would make inroads into the South-East and South-South, but the most interesting thing about it is that those inroads that the LP made into the South-East and South-South were inroads into the PDP strongholds. They merely scratched the APC. As far as I am concerned, in most parts of Delta state, we got two Senators, Delta Central, and South. We won the APC. In my polling unit, for example, I delivered for the APC for the senatorial election. We won. So, the Labour Party made inroads into the south particularly Delta state because a particular candidate whipped up religious sentiment. It was a purely religious sentiment that they used in entering those states. There is a limit to how you can push religious sentiment in the country. You can see that it helps that particular candidate in the country. Pushing, campaigning, and preaching on religious sentiment. But how far did he go? If you run the race 20 times, there is a certain demography in this country that will not change. You cannot penetrate all parts of this country solely on religious sentiment. A sitting president tried it and failed. In our demography, such sentiment won’t go away. The more you rely on religion, the more some other parts become suspicious of you and they will not vote for you. That is why you didn’t see Asiwaju in any mosque or church seeking votes. He just talked to Nigerians from anywhere and that was better for him. We are not surprised that Labour Party came into the south-south and southeast to take away the vote of the PDP.
Going by the way the election goes, would you say the APC underrated the LP in any way?
We didn’t underrate the LP, it was PDP who underrated them. We have been saying it. In all the interviews I granted leading up to the election, we kept saying that Peter Obi was the biggest favour to Asiwaju and that the pathway to the president was for Obi to clear the roads for him. I want you to know that at no time we write off Obi. We knew he was not going to win. So, we never projected Obi to win. But we projected Obi to decimate PDP and he indeed actually did that. There was an interview I did the day Asiwaju will be sworn in, I said way back in December that Peter Obi should be given a front-row seat during the swearing-in because he was the factor that aided Asiwaju to become the president of this country. That was why I tweeted two days ago and it went viral. Maybe the pastor saw the vision that Peter Obi was God’s chosen one. They didn’t know God raised Peter Obi for a purpose. He ensure Asiwaju was made the president. Peter Obi was a means to an end but not an end in itself. God raise Peter Obi for Asiwaju to emerge as President of this country and it has come to pass.
