Senator Abba Moro (Benue South) has stated the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) could have won the 2023 presidential election if it had not picked Ifeanyi Okowa as running mate to the party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.
During an interview on Channels Television’s ‘Politics Today’ on Tuesday night, Moro described the decision to pick Okowa, a former Delta Governor as a “costly error” for the opposition party.
His remarks follow recent comments by Okowa, who expressed regret over accepting the vice-presidential slot.
Speaking on Arise Television’s ‘Morning Show’ on Monday, Okowa admitted that his candidacy went against the wishes of his people.On April 23, Okowa and Delta Governor Sheriff Oborevwori officially defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Okowa defended the move, saying it was in the “best interest of our people” and necessary for the state to be “connected to Abuja.”
Reacting to Okowa’s defection, Moro said the former Governor’s statement only confirmed that “his heart was never truly with the PDP.”
According to him: “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.
“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.”
