He Abandoned Me, I Was Left Alone To Fight, The North Won’t Support Obi/Kwankwaso Ticket— Datti Recounts Experience Working With Obi

Former Labour Party vice presidential candidate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, has opened up about his experience working alongside Peter Obi, revealing deep frustrations over what he described as a lack of assertive leadership during and after the 2023 general elections.

 

Speaking during a press briefing with the leadership of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), monitored by NWN, Baba-Ahmed said he still holds both Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso in high regard, but expressed regret over some of the political advice he gave during their alliance.

 

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According to him, he had encouraged Obi in early 2024 to engage key northern political figures such as Kwankwaso and Nasir El-Rufai in a bid to strengthen a potential political coalition. However, he now believes that such a move may not have been politically viable.

 

“The North will not rally around an Obi/Kwankwaso ticket,” Baba-Ahmed stated, citing complex political dynamics and regional considerations. He questioned how supporters in Kano would react to a scenario where Kwankwaso, a long-time presidential aspirant, would accept a deputy role.

 

Baba-Ahmed also raised concerns about Obi’s leadership style, arguing that Nigeria’s political environment requires firmness and resilience. He criticized what he described as Obi’s tendency to withdraw from internal disputes rather than confront them head-on.

 

“A leader must be firm. However gentle you are, you must be willing to fight,” he said, stressing that political leadership in Nigeria demands the courage to stand ground, especially during moments of crisis.

 

Reflecting on the aftermath of the 2023 Nigerian presidential election, Baba-Ahmed lamented that he was left to challenge alleged constitutional breaches largely on his own. He suggested that stronger collective action from party leadership could have altered the course of events.

 

He said: “The North will not rally around the Obi/Kwankwaso ticket. I still have an excellent relationship, and I have much respect for both of them. I did say that I feel guilty because I was the one who told Peter Obi on the 31st of January 2024 in John Wools Hotels after asking him a few things, and I told him, Your Excellency, from this point, there is El-Rufai, Kwankwaso, I would like to suggest, you approach them”.

 

“Peter Obi has a vice presidential aspirant (Kwankwaso) that is older than him in age, has more educational qualifications, has more political profile, and in so many other things, the local government is nearly his state, the state is nearly his region, and he is somebody with a burning ambition and temperament, between him and Obi, who is supposed to be the president? How will Kano feel? That their champion, who has serially wanted to be the president, serially, will now go and want to be deputy?”

 

“Someone who got the Labour Party presidential ticket so easily should have stayed to fix the problems of the party, however difficult there were, I stood and earned the wrath of many because I said come and reconciled in Labour Party, only for me watch in the news, listening to my boss whom I believe in saying where ever there is a quarrel, he will walk away, so, if there’s a quarrel in Nigeria, he will walk away?”

 

“These are things that don’t add up. A leader must be firm, however gentle you are as a leader, you must be willing to fight, where is the first place to fight as a leader? When they are going to steal your victory, you don’t allow what happened in 2023, where there was a clear constitutional breach, but they left only one person, (me) fighting the constitutional breach, nobody spoke about it, you don’t do that. You must fight, if you are not ready to fight, don’t even come out to contest, stay in your house, you don’t play such politics in a country like Nigeria, so diverse, so heated”

 

He further criticized the handling of internal issues within the Labour Party, noting that despite his calls for reconciliation, the party leadership appeared unwilling to fully address its internal crises.