A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Edo State, Prince John Mayaki, has blamed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s defeat in the February 25th presidential election on the infighting that rocked the party in the build-up to its primaries. Also, there was a rebellion by five PDP governors who formed the G-5, as well as the departure of Obi, who joined the Labour Party.
Mayaki made this known in an interview where he carried out a post-mortem of the election and analyzed factors that contributed to its outcome.
The media veteran who served in the APC-PCC as the Chairman of the Edo State Media and Publicity Committee, said the opposition’s “divided house” stood no chance against the “compactness and unity” of the APC, particularly in the northern region where the APC governors stood firm to nullify the assumed ‘home advantage’ of the PDP’s Atiku. The same man lost out completely in the eastern region to his former running mate, Obi.
“It was clear that the PDP was going to fail. The party cannibalised itself and splintered into so many different factions that worked at cross-purposes,” he said.
“Unlike in the APC where all our governors and members stood firm, recruited more stakeholders and experienced mobilizers to strengthen the fold, the PDP suffered a damaging split over the widely perceived inappropriateness of Atiku’s emergence as a violation of the North – South power sharing arrangement, and that ultimately led to their defeat.”
On the Labour Party, he claimed that “Obi played a politics of ‘where I am from’, with the consequence being that he failed to attain the national spread every successful candidate needs to win.”
“Peter Obi failed to meet the requirements of the constitution namely the most number of votes and a 25% spread in two-third of the states, precisely because he made himself a sectional candidate and the drafters of our constitution included clauses to prevent the likes of him from exploiting our fault-lines to power. They made it so that presidents must have a broad support base, as seen in the case of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.”
Regarding the prayer of the opposition in their petition to the Election Petition Tribunal that Tinubu’s victory be nullified on the account that he failed to secure 25% of the votes in the Federal Capital Territory, Mayaki dismissed the contestation as “grasping at straws, because rulings exist recognizing the FCT as the 37th state of the country for the purpose of the application of legal edicts, especially in national elections.”
“Nigeria does not operate the electoral college system. All votes, regardless of where they are cast, bear the same weight. Abuja is Nigeria’s 37th state in this case and as such, it is clear that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu met all the requirements stipulated by law. He is the winner of the election and I strongly believe that the court will affirm this,”Mayaki added.
Urging the opposition to accept their defeat and prepare for another outing in four years, he warned against subversive actions capable of undermining the unity and stability of the country, particularly from some clerics and other actors whom he accused of uncritically acting out the script of malicious actors intent on dividing the country.
“Our clerics must be critical and let their involvement in politics, if it must happen, be guided by ethics and due consideration for the country’s continued unity and wellbeing. The same goes to journalists and other media stakeholders. Open display of bias and favoritism goes against the ethics of the profession. Journalists must be led by facts, not lazy assumptions. The election has been won and lost. It is time for the opposition to suspend their delusion and come to terms with reality,” he concluded.