PDP, APC took Obidient movement for granted, says Labaran Maku

Labaran Maku, former minister of information and national orientation, says the political movement of Peter Obi, the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, was taken for granted by his opponents.

Speaking on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television Programme, on Tuesday, Maku said many regarded Obi as a joke and a man without structure.

Obi came third in the February 25 presidential election, winning 11 states and garnering over six million votes.

The former minister said the politicians from the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) underrated the LP candidate and his supporters but were stunned by the “remarkable” support he got during the election.

“What happened in the presidential election as you could see was that there was this wave of Obidients; the young people that we all took for granted and we were all thinking that Peter Obi was a joke, where will he go? Both the APC and the PDP were thinking that this man doesn’t have structure and would not be able to do much,” he said.

“But the young people somehow seized the initiative from all the politicians, and for the first time, what we saw in Nasarawa, in several other places, in Edo and in Delta.

“We saw that the young people were serious about what they were doing and they took advantage of the social media to project a programme that has shaken the nation.”

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) lost to LP in Nasarawa state during the presidential election.

“We lost truly and APC which is the incumbent government lost more woefully than we did,” he added.

The former minister is a member of the PDP.