Afenifere, CUPP’s Adoption Won’t Ensure Your Victory – Labour Party Tells Atiku

The Labour Party has said that the adoption of former vice president and
the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku
Abubakar, by the 37 political parties that formed the Coalition of
United Political Parties, would not guarantee his victory in the 2019
election.

The party also said that the adoption of Atiku by the
Pan-Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, was not an indication that
the entire Southwest Nigeria was behind the Wazirin Adamawa in his bid
to become the president of the country .

While disassociating
itself from any merger with the CUPP, LP said that the coalition had the
right to adopt Atiku as its presidential, saying it was formed
initially to support a candidate to unseat President Muhammadu Buhari in
the forthcoming elections.

Speaking in an interview in Abeokuta,
the LP’s chairman in Ogun State, Comrade Abayomi Arabambi, said that
the adoption of Atiku by CUPP was not tantamount to victory in the 2019
as he was not the only candidate vying for the seat of power at the
centre.

According to Arabambi, some of the political parties that
formed coalition have no offices or candidates to contest the
presidential post or other political posts in the 2019 elections, noting
that they were mostly seen on posters.

“It just an
association of political parties and are free to adopt Atiku as their
presidential candidate because we are in democracy. The adoption of
Atiku by the CUPP is not tantamount to the fact that he will unseat
Buhari in 2019,” he said.

“You know CUPP is the amalgamation of
political parties, there are others that can do it. We have a lot of
these political parties that are on papers; some of them don’t have an
office in Abuja and they don’t have candidates for their parties.”

The
LP Chairman also maintained that the adoption of Atiku by Afenifere was
an indication that most of the group’s members belong to PDP, insisting
that such adoption won’t lead to his victory in the Southwest.

“The
adoption of Atiku by the Afenifere does not mean that every citizen and
other leaders in Yoruba land support Atiku, because most of the members
are PDP.” he stressed.