National secretary of the Labour Party, Umar Farouk, and Tai Obasi, media aide to Peter Obi, have dismissed rumours of possible merger with the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and his counterpart in the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso.
This comes days after the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) bragged that President Bola Tinubu will beat the trio again at the 2027 presidential poll.
There have been reports in some section of the media that Atiku, Kwankwaso and Obi have opened preliminary discussions on a possible merger with the ultimate goal of setting up a formidable opposition platform capable of wrestling power from the ruling party.
Reacting, Farouk noted that there was no iota of truth in such reports.
The national secretary disclosed that much as the Labour Party respects the privacy of its presidential candidate to associate with anybody, it would not merge with any other political group.
Farouk, however, did rule not out the possibility of an alliance.
His sentiment was also shared by Obi’s media aide when he was asked about the media reports.
While acknowledging that Obi respects Atiku and Kwankwaso’s political ideologies, Obasi stressed that they prefer to await the final judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal to retrieve their mandate.
“Those who are close to Obi know he has no enemy, except for those fighting him unnecessarily. He is a Nigerian who will always interact with any other Nigerian for the good of Nigeria. But with the level of margin, I can tell you that for now, there is nothing like the merger you talked about,” the aide said.
