Aviation minister and APC chieftain Festus Keyamo have claimed that former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and ex-Senate President David Mark are scheming to use and dump Peter Obi.

Mr Keyamo, in a post on X, after the unveiling of the African Democratic Congress as the official party for coalescing opposition politicians on Tuesday, described Messrs Abubakar and Mark as cunning guards conspiring to dupe Mr Obi.

“The person whom the old, cunning guards want to take for a ride in all of this is Peter Obi. They want his votes, but don’t want to give him their Presidential ticket, because this is Atiku’s show simpliciter. That is why David Mark is the interim chairman,” Mr Keyamo stated.

He added, “Those who know politics know what I am saying. But if you do not give Peter Obi the Presidential ticket, you lose his supporters. It is as simple as that.

“And how can you make someone who won two regions in the last election (South-East and South-South) a running mate to the person who won only one region (North-East)?”

Describing the coalition as a hybrid of Mr Abubakar’s faction from the Peoples Democratic Party and a few disgruntled APC politicians who left the part after Mr Tinubu’s emergence, Mr Keyamo pointed out that “this is just Atiku’s faction of PDP in desperate search for the 2027 presidential ticket—nothing more, nothing less”.

Mr Keyamo explained that “the other addition to the so-called ‘coalition’ is a sprinkling of APC members who actually worked against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the last election and one or two APC leaders who lost their constituencies to opposition parties in 2023”.

The politician warned that the politicians in the coalition “belonging to two political parties is a ground for disqualification in an election”.

On Tuesday, opposition politicians adopted the ADC as the political vehicle for their 2027 campaign. The new coalition immediately announced Mr Mark and Rauf Aregbesola, a former Osun governor, as its national chairman and national secretary, respectively.