Peter Obi’s camp denies planned political merger with Atiku, Kwankwaso

The National Secretary of the Labour Party (LP), Umar Farouk, and Tai Obasi, media aide to LP flag bearer, Peter Obi, have debunked knowledge of ongoing merger plans with the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and his counterpart in the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso.

They denied the speculations in two separate interviews with the Punch.

This was coming after the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) bragged that President Bola Tinubu will beat the trio again if the motive was to stop him from winning the 2027 presidential poll.

The development is coming in the wake of media reports that the trio of Atiku, Kwankwaso and Obi has opened a preliminary discussion on a possible merger with the ultimate goal of setting up a formidable opposition platform that is capable of wrestling power from the ruling party.

Reacting, Farouk told the Punch that there was no iota of truth in such a report.

The LP national secretary disclosed that much as the party respects the privacy of its presidential candidate to associate with anybody, he vowed that Labour Party would never merge with any other political party.

Farouk, however, did rule out the possibility of an alliance.

His sentiment was also shared by the LP’s presidential candidate’s media aide when he was asked about the media report.

While acknowledging that Obi respects Atiku and Kwankwaso’s political ideologies, Obasi stressed that they prefer to await the final judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal to retrieve their mandate.

He further stressed that:

“Those who are close to Obi know he has no enemy, except for those fighting him unnecessarily. He is a Nigerian who will always interact with any other Nigerian for the good of Nigeria. But with the level of margin, I can tell you that for now, there is nothing like the merger you talked about.”