Presidential Election: IPOB Helped Peter Obi Win – APC Chieftain Claims

The assistant director of media and publicity for the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign, Biodun Ajiboye has alleged that the Indigenous of People of Biafra (IPOB) aided the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi to emerge winner in Lagos State and some other states during the presidential election.

Naija News reports that Ajiboye claimed that IPOB was the reason why Obi’s performance in the February 25 election was outstanding.

It would be recalled Obi defeated the APC candidate and former Governor, Bola Tinubu in Lagos State, polling 582,354 votes against the latter’s 572,606.

However, the APC chieftain alleged that IPOB helped him in Lagos State and that is why the state can not be ruled by the Labour Party.

Ajibola, who made this pronouncement on Tuesday during an interview with Arise TV, noted that it was because of his affiliation with them, Obi, who never spoke against the separatist group.

He also accused Obi of using religious sentiment while saying “Obi actually rode on the religious factor. He wanted to ride on it to power. So he was hopping from church to church telling them ‘take your country back, take your country back’ as if the country literally belongs to the Christians and somebody took it from them. Wrong politicking if I may say.

“So the Christians started to feel they must vote out Muslims and must not allow Muslim-Muslim tickets to win. That was what worked against Lagos State. Some churches particularly came very hard on their members telling them not to vote for X or Y, so that worked against us.

“And the tribal factor. Obi played tribal politics and that again worked against us because the Igbo community came together in one bloc and gave their votes to Obi. We were caught unaware to a large extent. It was an insurgency upon our political stability and fortress.

“They actually came without us expecting it and now that they’ve done it we’re now very much awake. We now know where and what to do to ensure that a repeat of a such calamity does not happen. Why do I call it a calamity? People do not understand the enormity of what it would be for the Labour Party to win Lagos State.

“There’s a secessionist group called IPOB which the Federal Government of Nigeria has prohibited but they are still operating very actively in the East and there was never a time Peter Obi spoke against IPOB. And the kind of electoral fortunes Peter Obi recorded in the East is an indication that IPOB worked for him.”