September 20, 2022

Governor Yahaya Bello on Monday dismissed the Anap poll which favoured Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate Peter Obi, maintaining that the claims he has backing of Nigerian youths is not true and that online agitation is different from grassroots mobilisation.

The poll result, released last week, indicated that the former Anambra governor is leading the race, way ahead of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s Atiku Abubakar and the All Progressives Congress (APC) flagbearer Bola Tinubu.

But Bello, an APC chieftain, admitted that while Obi is doing great, the LP candidate’s support base is online, a development he says does not translate to grassroots mobilisation.

“Peter Obi – I respect him. A gentleman, one-time governor; a businessman who everyone knows has engaged in several businesses including the importation of the majority of the products we consume today in the country,” the Kogi governor said during an appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today.

“He is doing well in his own right but let me tell you: online agitation is different from grassroots movements and mobilisation.”

‘Not On Ground’
The governor recalled that prior to his re-election in 2019, several polls conducted in the north-central state projected his failure in the exercise.

“I simply laughed because they are not on the ground. They fly in the sky. They don’t move by the road,” the 47-year-old maintained.

“They don’t have a connection at all with the people. I knew exactly what I had put on the ground and the connectivity I had on the ground and I won the election like never before in the history of Kogi State.”

He also dismissed claims that Obi has the backing of Nigerian youths going into next year’s poll.

“Well, during the contest before the presidential primaries of all political parties, the only person that commands the respect and control of Nigerian youths is Governor Yahaya Bello,” he said during the show.