“Although I Was the Vice-Presidential Candidate, I Knew That We Would Not Win the Election”: Okowa Confesses, Says He Told Christian Leaders APC Would Win, PDP Second, LP Third

Reported by: Ijeoma G | Edited by: Oravbiere Osayomore Promise.

Ifeanyi Okowa, the former Governor of Delta State and the man who ran alongside Atiku Abubakar as the Peoples Democratic Party’s vice-presidential candidate in the 2023 election, has finally said what many Nigerians have long suspected. He knew they were going to lose. Not after the results were announced. Not after the collation was completed. Before a single vote was cast. In a video seen by SaharaReporters and widely circulated on Wednesday, September 10, 2026, Okowa recounted his assessment of the political atmosphere at the time and the prediction he shared with Christian leaders before Nigerians went to the polls. “I knew we would not win the election,” he said. “And even when I met with the Christian leaders, I told them that APC will win, while PDP will come second and then LP will come third.”

The admission, made during a recent event in his home state of Delta, is a devastating indictment of the PDP’s 2023 presidential campaign. Okowa was not a passive observer. He was the running mate. He was on the ticket. He was supposed to be one of the two people most invested in the outcome of the election. And yet, by his own account, he entered the race convinced that victory was impossible. He knew that the All Progressives Congress would win, that his own party would finish second, and that the Labour Party would come third. And he kept that knowledge to himself, or at least he did not act on it in any way that changed the trajectory of the campaign. He told Christian leaders, but he did not tell the Nigerian people. He did not tell the millions of PDP supporters who donated their time, their money, and their hope to a campaign that its own vice-presidential candidate believed was doomed.

Okowa’s confession raises uncomfortable questions about the nature of the 2023 election and the conduct of the political class that contested it. If the vice-presidential candidate knew the party would lose, what does that say about the campaign he ran? What does it say about the strategy, the messaging, the internal polling, and the coordination between the presidential candidate and his running mate? The PDP’s loss in 2023 has been analysed and debated for years, but Okowa’s admission adds a new and damning dimension to the story. It suggests that the party’s leadership was not blindsided by defeat. It suggests that they knew what was coming and either could not or would not do anything to stop it. And it suggests that the campaign was, in some fundamental sense, a performance rather than a genuine contest for power.

The timing of Okowa’s confession is also significant. He made the disclosure at an APC gathering in Ika North-East Local Government Area of Delta State, where he urged residents to convert their support for the ruling party into actual votes at the 2027 polls. Okowa, who served as Delta State Governor from 2015 to 2023 on the platform of the PDP, defected to the APC in April 2025 alongside Governor Sheriff Oborevwori. He is now preparing to contest for the Delta North senatorial seat on the platform of the ruling party in the 2027 general election. The man who once ran for vice-president on the PDP ticket is now campaigning for the APC, the very party he predicted would win in 2023. His confession, delivered at an APC event and framed as a reflection on the last election, cannot be separated from his current political project. It is both a retrospective assessment and a present-day argument for why voters should support the ruling party in 2027.

But even if Okowa’s motives are political, the substance of his admission remains deeply troubling. He was not an outsider looking in. He was on the inside. He was the running mate. And he knew the campaign was lost. The PDP’s supporters deserved better. The millions of Nigerians who believed in the party’s promise of a better future deserved better. They deserved a campaign that was honest about its chances, a leadership that was willing to fight for victory rather than accept defeat before the ballots were counted. Okowa’s confession is a reminder that Nigeria’s political class often treats elections as a game to be managed rather than a contest to be won. It is a reminder that the interests of the people are frequently subordinated to the calculations of the elite. And it is a reminder that the men and women who run for office sometimes know, long before the rest of us, that they are not going to win.

The 2023 presidential election was eventually won by Bola Tinubu of the APC, who secured 8,794,726 votes. Atiku Abubakar came second with 6,984,520 votes, and Peter Obi of the Labour Party finished third with 6,101,533 votes. Both Atiku and Obi challenged the result in court, but their bids to overturn Tinubu’s victory ultimately failed. Okowa’s prediction, made before the election, turned out to be accurate in every detail. The APC won. The PDP came second. The LP came third. It was, in his own words, exactly what he told the Christian leaders would happen.

Now, as Nigeria prepares for the 2027 general elections, Okowa’s confession serves as a cautionary tale. It is a reminder that the men and women who seek our votes are not always honest with us. It is a reminder that campaigns can be hollow exercises in political theatre, conducted by actors who know the ending before the curtain rises. And it is a reminder that the Nigerian people, who bear the consequences of bad governance long after the campaign posters have been torn down, deserve leaders who fight for their votes with sincerity and conviction. Okowa’s admission is not just a confession. It is a window into the soul of a political class that has grown comfortable with losing, as long as the losing serves their interests. The people of Delta State, and the people of Nigeria, deserve better. They deserve leaders who believe in victory, or who at least have the decency to tell them the truth.

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