Consider Merger with Other Parties to Defeat  APC in 2027, Ex-INEC  Chief Advises  PDP

Gbenga Sodeinde in Ado Ekiti

Former National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Lai Olurode, has advised the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to consider a merger with other political parties ahead of the 2027 general elections.

Olurode said the PDP would only be able to dislodge the ruling APC from power if it could merge with other parties, saying the main opposition party threw away a big opportunity to return to power when it went into the 2023 general elections in a weaker and fractured state.

Speaking as a guest on Bottom Line, a programme of New Cruse 92.7 FM, Ikere monitored by THISDAY yesterday, Olurode said opposition parties in the country led by the PDP would have achieved the feat of sacking the APC from power if they had swallowed their pride and work together to give Nigerians a party regime change they had craved.

The Professor of Sociology noted that APC was able to unseat the PDP from power in 2015 because the legacy parties that coalesced into the merger buried their differences and sacrificed individual ambitions to achieve the unprecedented feat.

While noting that without prejudice to the decision of the PDP and its presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, to challenge the results announced by INEC which returned the APC candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as the president-elect, Olurode believed that the opposition’s chances of defeating the ruling party would be brighter if they consider a merger ahead of 2027.

He said: “If the PDP as an opposition party was determined to win, it should have done what the APC did ahead of 2015 when the legacy parties that merged into a new party then buried their differences and sacrificed individual ambitions to provide a formidable platform against the PDP that year.

“The parties that sacrificed to make this possible in the run-up to the 2015 general elections knew that going into that elections alone would lead to defeat, they buried their pride and went into the polls as a united front and won.

“What happened on February 25 was like the PDP was waiting for defeat; you went into the election without your generals like Wike, Makinde, Ortom and other governors in the G-5 because they failed to have a cohesive party. For me, these parties (PDP and other opposition parties) should look ahead and work towards 2027.”

Assessing the performance of INEC in the first set of elections held on February 25, Olurode said the electoral agency should be commended for sticking to the dates of this election cycle without giving room to any postponement and admitting some mistakes in the conduct.

The former National Commissioner said INEC performed above average in the conduct of the presidential and national assembly election but advised the electoral agency to get its logistics right ahead of the Saturday’s governorship and house of assembly election.

Olurode added: “For me, INEC can still do better, INEC had an overdose of technology. It promised what was almost impossible for it to deliver in the Manual for the Elections, that is e-transmission of election results.

“It never thought of the possibility of an attempt to hack into its system. We are no longer in the era of Maurice Iwu when elections were blatantly rigged, when results were announced when collation was ongoing. INEC should get its logistics right in the Saturday’s elections.”