2023 Elections Will Remain Between Two Major Parties: Senator Ajibola

Spokesperson of the Senate, Senator Ajibola Basiru, is confident there will be no third force to cause an upset to the results of the 2023 general elections.

The lawmaker said in a televised interview on Wednesday, September 22, that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) are the only realistic options for Nigerians.

His comment was in reaction to this week’s launch of the Rescue Nigeria Project (RNP), a group formed by political actors that said they want to improve the quality of leadership in public office.

The group said the APC and PDP have not offered the nation the best service to capitalise on its potential, declaring that RNP would change the country’s fortunes.

RNP founders include former governors, Donald Duke (Cross River), and Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara); political economist, Prof. Pat Utomi; and former chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Attahiru Jega.

Many of the top members of the group are former or current members of the PDP and APC and are yet to renounce their membership following the launch of RNP.

Basiru called the group an ‘assemblage of failed politicians’ who are merely pushing for political relevance and nothing else of substance.

He said nothing serious will come out of the group’s launch just like other previous attempts to upset the political establishment without meaningful structures.

“As far as I’m concerned in Nigeria today, if the electoral contest is anything to go about, you can only mention political parties like APC, PDP, APGA — may be in a particular state — and some splinter parties that come up by an individual like a senator that won on the platform of YPP.

“The truth is that the 2023 election is going to be about a choice between the APC, my political party and the party of our president, President Muhammadu Buhari, and the PDP,” the senator said.

Basiru further praised APC for bringing ‘tremendous and quantum development’ to the lives of Nigerians with its social intervention programme and infrastructure development.