The Labour Party (LP) Presidential candidate, Peter Obi, said the party could harness the numerical strength of its members to emerge victorious in next year’s polls.
He spoke on Wednesday while addressing journalists shortly after a meeting with leaders and members of the Labour Party in Abeokuta, the Ogun state capital.
He opined that ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would not win the 2023 election because the parties “have expired and lost their political relevance in the country.”
Obi who recently resigned his membership of the main opposition party, said the PDP stepped out of fortune and victory following its refusal to zone the Presidential ticket to the South.
Speaking through his campaign Director General, Dr. Doyin Okupe, Obi berated the PDP for being “unrighteous and unjust” by jettisoning the zoning arrangement of the party.
According to him, those who opposed zoning in the PDP put the existence of the PDP at risk and violated the gentleman agreement of the founding fathers of the party.
Obi said, he is banking on Nigeria’s workforce, youths, market women to defeat both the APC and the PDP at the 2023 general elections.
He said, “The PDP was a veritable party that was put together by our elders and leaders. Those who came yesterday and said rotation does not matter undermine the very essence of the existence of the PDP, the moment they took that step, the PDP stepped out of line of fortune, of future, of victory because it has become suddenly unrighteous and unjust.
“There is no unrighteous and unjust pillar that will stand. The PDP was a good platform, but it has expired. The APC was never a good platform, it is of no consequence. The two parties are out, these two parties have expired, they are not relevance to the new things that Nigerians and the youths are looking for.
“Labour party in the scheme of things is still a very small party, but we are not unaware of that before we moved here. But the Labour Party is a sleeping giant. The potential electorate reservoir of Labour Party is more than three times the membership of APC and PDP put together. NLC, TUC, NURTW, market women, professional bodies, students are all part of Labour Party.
“The NLC has a membership of about 5 million, the TUC has a membership of about 8 to 10 million, the number of students registered in the Federal universities is about 2.5 million, those who are not in the Federal universities are about 6.7 million, when you add all that together, you are looking at about 20 reserved voters that have direct affiliation with Labour Party.
“Our strategy will be to reawake the Nigerian workers. Nigeria is going to see something it has not seen before, we will beat APC and PDP pants down.”