The lawmaker representing Benue South Senatorial District, Abba Moro, has claimed that the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, would have won the 2023 presidential election if it had not chosen a former governor of Delta State, Ifeanyi Okowa, as the running mate of its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.
Moro made this statement in an interview on Politics Today, a programme on Channels Television, on Tuesday.
The lawmaker also described the choice of Okowa as the vice presidential candidate of the PDP in the 2023 general elections as a “serious mistake.”
According to him, Okowa’s claim that he regretted being the PDP vice presidential candidate when he failed to ensure that the PDP won in Delta in the presidential election showed that his soul was not in the party.
DAILY POST reports that Okowa, along with the Delta State Governor, Sheriff Oborevwori, had dumped the PDP for the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.
Okowa, while speaking when he was officially received by the leadership of the APC in Asaba on Monday, said the defection was in the best interest of the people of the state and the need for the people of Delta to connect to Abuja.
However, the Benue senator said, “Given what we know now, with the hindsight that we have now, some of us think that the party would have won the election if other candidates, other than Okowa, had been picked as the vice presidential candidate from the South.
“I think there is an error of judgment on the part of everybody that was involved in the choice of Okowa as the candidate. How else would you characterise this scenario, that a sitting governor, a former senator, and a presidential candidate of a party couldn’t deliver his state even to the presidential candidate?
“And to think that two out of the senators from that state were from the opposition parties other than the PDP.
“So, I think that picking Okowa as the vice presidential candidate in 2023 was a very serious mistake.”
The former Interior Minister reiterated that Okowa’s action showed a lack of commitment to the party.
“As it is now, you can safely conclude that we lost the election because of lack of commitment.
“Otherwise, how can you explain that shortly after losing his state, that ordinarily should have been a very easy pick for the PDP, instead of rendering an apology to the party and Nigeria, he’s now talking about regretting being on the ticket?
“His soul was not in the PDP. His soul was not in that election, and that is why we performed very miserably in Delta State,” he added.
