A lawmaker representing Borno South Senatorial District in the 9th National Assembly, Ali Ndume, says the performance of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 general elections, especially at the presidential poll, exceeded his expectation.
He said LP had did well at the poll because youths and the middle class, who are fed up with the older generation who have been in government for decades, saw the party as their rallying point and hope.
Ndume made this known during an interview with Channels Television on Sunday.
Asked if the outcome of the polls fitted his expectations, Ndume said, “Yeah, but there were surprises in some places – Lagos, (and the) South-East. The performance of LP actually is above my expectation.”
Ndume, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Army, has been in the National Assembly for 20 years. The chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) said he never thought that the flag bearer of the Labour Party, Peter Obi could get over six million votes at the poll over a months ago.
Asked that he never thought that Peter Obi could pull such strings, Ndume said, “Yeah, even in the general elections all over, especially. He (Obi) had six million votes.
“It goes to tell something that people don’t talk about: and that is to say that the signs are out there that the middle income group or social group and the youths are getting tired of the – do I even include myself? — upper level: people in their 70s and 80s who have been in the corridors of power since they were in their 30s.”
At the February 25 poll, APC’s Bola Tinubu, 70, came out tops in 12 of Nigeria’s 36 states, and secured significant numbers in several other states to claim the highest number of votes — 8,794,726, almost two million votes more than his closest rival — former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Atiku, 76, who has now run for president six times, got 6,984,520 votes, while the LP candidate (Obi), who, in less than a year, galvanised young voters in a manner some have described as unprecedented finished the race with 6,101,533