Biodun Ajiboye, a Lagos State All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain, has claimed that the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) helped the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, win the state election on February 25.
He stated that the IPOB is one of the major reasons why the Labour Party should not be allowed to lead Lagos State because the party’s leader, Peter Obi, never spoke out against the secessionist movement.
He also accused the former governor of Anambra State of using religious and tribal factors to defeat the APC in the last presidential election.
Ajiboye admitted that the LP and the Obidient Movement caught the APC off guard and shook their political foundation in the presidential election, vowing that this will not happen again in the governorship and state assembly elections on March 18.
When asked about the factors that influenced the APC in the last election, the party chieftain mentioned the EndSARS protest, adding that the youths are still haunted by the events of the national protest.
“Obi relied heavily on the religious factor. He desired to ride it to power. So he went from church to church, telling them to “take your country back, take your country back,” as if the country literally belongs to Christians and someone stole it from them. “Wrong politics, if you will,” he said on Arise TV.
“As a result, Christians began to believe that they needed to vote out Muslims and not allow Muslim-Muslim tickets to win. That was the strategy that worked against Lagos State. Some churches were particularly harsh with their members, telling them not to vote for X or Y, which worked against us.
“There’s also the tribal factor. Obi used tribal politics against us once again, as the Igbo community banded together and voted for Obi in unison. To a large extent, we were caught off guard. It was a coup against our political stability and fortress.
“They actually came without us expecting it and now that they’ve done it we’re now very much awake. We now know where to look and what to do to avoid a repeat of this disaster. Why do I call it a disaster? People underestimate the magnitude of the Labour Party’s victory in Lagos State.
“There’s a secessionist group called IPOB which the Federal Government of Nigeria has prohibited but they are still operating very actively in the East and there was never a time Peter Obi spoke against IPOB. And the kind of electoral fortunes Peter Obi had in the East suggest that IPOB worked for him.”