The All Progressives Congress, APC, has lost the ability to win elections in Nigeria, according to Labour Party vice presidential candidate Datti Baba-Ahmed, since it chose a Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket.
Datti asserts that given the complicated ethnoreligious makeup of Nigeria, such a presidential ticket will not succeed there.
As many as fifteen presidential candidates, according to the LP vice presidential candidate, have fallen behind as of next Saturday’s election, and two of the three remaining parties—the APC and the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party—have shifted their positions on what is required to win elections in Nigeria.
It is no longer news that the APC presidential candidate Bola Tinubu, who is a Yoruba Muslim, is running for the position with another Muslim from Borno, North East.
“Why today Tinubu is not the vice president of Nigeria is the same reason he cannot be president,” Baba-Ahmed said during a live appearance on Channels Television’s The 2023 Verdict on Tuesday.
“What couldn’t happen in 2015 when the then candidate Buhari asked for any nomination whatsoever from Tinubu – because that configuration has passed. It can no longer work in Nigeria. [A] Muslim-Muslin ticket cannot work anymore,” he added.
Baba-Ahmed pointed out that Nigeria is not like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Vatican, Iran, Libya or Mauritania, places that are known to be dominated by a particular religion, but a federal republic with over 250 tribes.
He further stated that “out of 18 political parties that presented presidential candidates, 15 have fallen behind.”
He added that of the other three, two have “misconfigured themselves and fallen out of alignment with the dictates of winning elections in Nigeria”.
