Former Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has maintained that Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, would not have won the 2023 presidential election even if he had polled as many as 10 million votes.
Speaking on Edmund Obilo’s State Affairs podcast, Mohammed said the issue was not the total number of votes but Obi’s failure to meet the constitutional requirement of securing at least one-quarter of votes cast in 25 states of the federation. He added that Obi was also unable to deploy party agents to about 40,000 polling units during the election.
Mohammed said the 2023 polls were shaped by unusual dynamics, noting that ethnicity and religion played a more prominent role than ever before, particularly in Lagos State. He also linked the mood of many young voters to the aftermath of the #EndSARS protests, saying anger from that period affected the fortunes of the APC and its candidate, Bola Tinubu.
He further explained that presidential elections differ significantly from governorship and National Assembly contests, arguing that presidential races are less personal because candidates are not rooted in individual states in the same way governors are.
On President Tinubu’s leadership style, Mohammed said the president does not abandon allies after electoral losses, describing him as strategic, politically astute, and often underestimated because of his warm and charismatic disposition.
