By Emeka Mba
I don’t see an Atiku/Obi joint ticket in 2027. That will be political suicide for Peter Obi . If Obi accepts to deputize Atiku , he will likely lose his base. This is because , Peter obi has a radical base whose only drive is in their believe that Peter Obi is a politician different from the others.
A politician must understand his base. If Peter Obi accepts to deputize Atiku, he risks losing his popular appeal and rubbishing the political goodwill he has built over time. His base will see him as just one of those politicians who only wants to grab power and so cannot be trusted.
Such alliance will hurt Obi more than it will hurt Atiku. Obi is the only politician in Nigeria today, whose political base is built on a well defined ideology, and they are not apologetic about it.
On the other hand, H.E Atiku Abubakar himself cannot win without Obi bringing his obedient movement to support him. The best bet for any coalition is for Atiku to nominate a VP just like Tinubu did for Buhari, and then collapse his base and support Peter Obi to run and finish the remaining four years meant for the South. After which Obi will step aside in a gentleman agreement, and support Atiku to do the turn of the north from 2031. anything short of this will be a disaster for whatever coalition they think they are forming.
Only a southern candidate can defeat a southern president as it stands now , due to the sentiments in sections of the South who believe it is their turn. Atiku enjoys political goodwill in the North east/West and Obi has same goodwill in the South and some part of the North Central. If they join forces, and convince the North to follow their ship , No rigging machine will be able to stop them.
It’s also important that they get Rotimi Amaechi fully on board their ship. Amaechi can play a vital role. He understands APC and has that rare ability to say and do things that can heat up the polity and destabilize the APC govt at the center.
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