APC chieftain Ikonne dismisses Abaribe’s threat of Tinubu losing 2027 presidential poll;
APC chieftain Ikonne dismisses Abaribe’s threat of Tinubu losing 2027 presidential poll; Says South East now APC stronghold
By John Okezie
A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Prince Paul Ikonne, has dismissed Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe’s statement that President Bola Tinubu will not win the 2027 presidential election.
Ikonne, equally frowned at the Abaribe’s claim that President Tinubu did not win the 2023 presidential election, describing him as politically desperate and a man out of tune with current realities.
While launching a strong rebuttal against Enyinnaya over his recent comments questioning the credibility of President Tinubu’s victory in the 2023 presidential election, he claimed that Tinubu’s victory in 2027 will be a total tsunami.
Ikonne, who responded to Abaribe’s claim on Tuesday argued that his comments were symptomatic of what he described as growing panic within the opposition political parties ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Responding to Abaribe’s claim that President Tinubu did not win the 2023 general election and will not win again in 2027, Ikonne, said Abaribe’s sustained criticism of President Tinubu’s mandate is borne out of fear of the ruling party’s expanding influence across the country.
His words: “If you know Senator Abaribe very well, you will realise that he is an attention seeker. He is always seeking attention. This is a man who did not win his own election in 2023. One young man defeated him during the election, and anybody who wants to know the details should get what the young man filed at the Tribunal against Senator Abaribe.
“What Abaribe displayed showed clearly that the opposition, if any, are panicky. The President won election, not just in one state but across the country and his popularity has gone up more than what it was in 2023 because 90 per cent of PDP in the entire South East have collapsed into the APC”, he said.
“As we speak, about 90 per cent of the PDP structure in the South East has collapsed into the APC. The raw materials of politics are human beings, and those human beings are now gravitating towards President Tinubu. This is the reality in the South-East and Nigeria as a whole. I can assure you that there will be an Asiwaju tsunami in 2027”, the former Executive Secretary of National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA) said.
He added: “APC is a party of ideology; looking at the President, his programmes he established a blueprint for Lagos State when he was a governor, it was launched officially, and any governor that comes after him will build on it. That’s progressive, that’s where you see development.
“So, that governor that played that foundation is now the President and that blueprint will have been expanded to accommodate the diverse nature of Nigeria in order to develop the entire country. So APC has agenda, APC has ideology, ideology of development, ideology of raising the youths and ideology of inclusiveness.
“So, if those defecting to APC have seen the light because their houses were on fire and they need shelter, you accommodate them, educate them and when they will begin to see the difference. And that’s why they are not leaving. That’s the beauty of democracy. It is a global thing and not just about Nigeria”, he noted.
