Peter Obi, the presidential candidate for the Labour Party, has little chance of winning the 2023 presidential election, according to Minister of State for Health Senator Olorunnimbe Mamora.

Mamora claims that Obi’s candidacy is equivalent to the independent candidates who have never succeeded in electing a president in America.

“What I see, with all due respect is what you can call independent candidacy in Labour, and to the best of my knowledge even in America, no independent candidate has ever won the presidency. They can win in the Senate or House of Representatives but not in the presidential, so it will be a miracle of the century,” the former Senator representing Lagos Central said on Channels Television Political Paradigm.

He added, “I won’t dismiss it (support for Peter Obi) but it doesn’t seem to me that it will be as such as would cause havoc in this system at the end of the day. This is because we do our checks on a regular basis. We look at the spread; we look at the capacity on the ground. You see, you cannot underrate the role of structures in politics and particularly in elections because this is the reality. There are many logistics involved in electioneering.”

Mamora dismissed the rising support Obi is receiving from labour unions and young people, claiming that those same groups also support other candidates.

While the minister acknowledged that there are other contenders in the race for president, he claimed Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress is the candidate to beat.

“I said with all due respect, no one should underrate anyone. In a contest, you don’t underrate anyone but with all due respect to all these front liners, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi and Kwankwaso, of course, those are the faces we see when you tune into any channel.

“So, you cannot underrate but I am saying that in spite of that and with all due respect to other candidates, he (Tinubu) is still the number one candidate to beat, that’s the point I am making.”

Credit: ObjecTV