By Ayobami Okerinde

A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Segun Sowunmi, has called on the party to initiate efforts to bring back Labour Party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, into its fold, while warning that emerging coalition talks may be an attempt to exploit Obi’s popularity ahead of the 2027 elections.

Sowunmi made this known during an appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Friday.

Recall thatObi had defected from the PDP to the Labour Party in 2022, citing delegate bribery, vote-buying, and internal party cliques working against him as reasons for his exit.

Sowunmi said, ‘’One of the people who was a PDP member, a South eastern man who felt, based on the balance of play that the South-East was excluded, Peter Obi, was allocated 6.2 million votes. You lose the election, you run to the Supreme Court, you lose, at least you were adjudged to have lost.

“Any deep-thinking, fair-minded Nigerian man who is in the political party called the PDP ought to know that the greatest, necessary next step is to have the conversation about: ‘How do you bring Peter back’ now that the energy driving him is organic.”

He also criticised the PDP’s leadership for its ongoing instability since the 2023 elections, describing defections to the All Progressives Congress (APC) as self-inflicted wounds, adding that underestimating President Bola Tinubu’s political strategy could prove costly.

“There is a level of activity that you can blame your bullies for, but there is a certain level of recurring, continuous lack of creativity that you have to hold yourself responsible for,” he said.

“One of the things that people do is fall prey to the frail nature of President Bola Tinubu. I know him for his intellectual capacity. He will look frail, but his brain is that of a giant, so most times people underestimate him to their own peril.

‘’The painful thing is that my own side is choosing to pretend that it is an easy material to defeat in politics. What do they know that he doesn’t know?” he asked.

‘Coalition only interested in your popularity’

Sowunmi further warned Peter Obi that the proposed coalition ahead of the 2027 general elections appears to be a calculated move to exploit his popularity.

Obi is reportedly being courted to join a coalition led by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, ex-Kaduna State Governor Nasiru El-Rufai, and other opposition figures, with claims that Atiku has offered to make Obi his running mate and hand over power after one year. But Sowunmi dismissed the plan as a selfish arrangement tailored to benefit a select group of politicians.

“The fundamentals by which you build a movement to rescue a nation can’t be predominantly too selfish.

“All that talks they’re making about coalition, they are just trying to take advantage of Peter Obi and it’s his business if he allows them to take advantage of him,” he said.