A former Deputy Governor of Ekiti State and ex-Senate Minority Leader, Senator Biodun Olujimi, has said that the 2023 Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, will not be a threat to President Bola Tinubu’s re-election bid in 2027.
Olujimi made the assertion on Thursday during her appearance on Politics Today, a current affairs programme on Channels Television. According to her, the political terrain has shifted, and the “rhetoric” that propelled Obi during the last election may no longer resonate.
“The rhetoric of the last election will not work again, except he comes with another gimmick. And you see, this (Tinubu) is a politician, a man who knows the terrain well,” she said.
Describing President Tinubu as a deeply experienced politician, Olujimi stated that unseating him would be an uphill task in 2027.
“This is the first time we are having a dyed-in-the-wool politician as president. He knows his onions; he knows all of us. He has been in the system for very long. It’s tough.
This is a man who has worked with everyone, who has been useful to everyone, who has had opportunities to assist governments. Beating him? Uphill task,” she added.
Olujimi, who recently joined the All Progressives Congress (APC), said she was drawn to the ruling party by what she described as its “pragmatic and resolute leadership.” According to her, the APC under Tinubu differs markedly from what it was in the past.
“The APC we talked about in the past, the government that was in power then, is not the current one in power. There is a different APC now.
This government is pragmatic. It’s resolute, it’s taking tough decisions and running with the decisions. It’s not like other governments – taking tough decisions and when people start to complain, dropping it and making them comfortable again, going back to the old ways,” she explained.
On her decision to leave the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Olujimi admitted it was not entirely fair to the platform that gave her political prominence. However, she said the party had lost momentum and her constituents supported her defection.
“It is this government that made me join the APC, not any other,” she stressed.
While commenting on the ongoing coalition movement by the African Democratic Congress (ADC), the former senator dismissed the party’s relevance in Ekiti State, saying it lacks viable structures at state and local government levels.
Olujimi said she would rather leave a party than work against it from within, noting that the internal crisis in the PDP following the 2023 elections was poorly handled and contributed to its decline.
