2019 Presidency: How Buhari, Atiku Are Battling For Big Votes

Although over 20 political parties have produced their presidential candidates in the race to the 2019 general elections, observers believe the presidential election will be mainly a battle between President Muhammadu Buhari of the APC and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the PDP.

In the meantime, as the North leads with the number of registered voters, political analysts say this is where Buhari and Atiku – who are both Muslims, Fulani and septuagenarians – will have their hottest battle for votes.

What are their strategies to win the big votes?



The Punch's Jesusegun Alagbe writes;
When former Vice President Atiku Abubakar defected to the PDP in December 2017, after a four-year sojourn at the ruling APC there were insinuations he was not going back to the PDP just to be a member, but to make another attempt at fulfilling his presidential ambition.

The former Vice President had in previous times sought this position: first, in 1992 when he contested the presidential primary of the Social Democratic Party but lost out to late Chief MKO Abiola.

He sought the presidency again in the 2007 general elections on the platform of the Action Congress, but came third behind the PDP’s candidate, late Umaru Yar’Adua, who won the election, and the All Nigeria Peoples Party’s candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, who came second.

In 2011, Atiku contested the PDP presidential primary ticket but lost out to former President Goodluck Jonathan, who was Yar’Adua’s ex-Vice President.

Not giving up on his ambition, in 2013, he defected to the newly-formed APC, but lost in the party’s presidential primary to Buhari, who eventually won the presidential election in 2015.

Following this defeat and being allegedly shut out of the Buhari administration, Atiku stayed two more years at the APC before leaving in December 2017.

Expectedly, he declared another presidential bid on the PDP platform in July 2018, promising to rebuild the economy and tackle insecurity effectively, two areas in which he claimed the Buhari administration had failed the people woefully.

Fortunately for him, the former VP emerged the PDP presidential candidate last Sunday in what political pundits have described as the most competitive presidential primary of any party in the race to the 2019 general elections.

Atiku, who garnered 1,532 of the 3,274 votes from party delegates, defeated 11 other aspirants, including Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State; Senate President Bukola Saraki; and a former Kano State governor, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso.

“We have a wonderful opportunity to return the PDP to power,” Atiku said in his acceptance speech at the Adokiye Amesiamaka Stadium, Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.

“We’ve enumerated the challenges faced by the country over and over. What we need to do is to proffer solutions. That is what will make us different from the clueless government.”

Speaking of the “clueless government,” the ex-VP apparently referred to the administration of Buhari, his likely major contender in next year’s presidential election.

Buhari had also emerged the APC’s 2019 presidential candidate after polling 14.8 million votes in the party’s direct presidential primary across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.

Other presidential candidates the Independent National Electoral Commission has cleared include Donald Duke of the Social Democratic Party; Olusegun Mimiko of the Zenith Labour Party; Obi Ezekwesili of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria; Kingsley Moghalu of the Young Progressives Party; Fela Durotoye of the Alliance for New Nigeria; and Omoyele Sowore of the African Action Congress.

However, despite the emergence of new and young candidates, political analysts postulate that next year’s presidential election will mainly be between Atiku, 71, and Buhari, 75, of the PDP and the APC respectively.

“We hope to see the emergence of people like Ezekwesili, Moghalu and Durotoye in the future. They are young and seem innovative, bri in 2019, unlike in 2015.

“Atiku is from Adamawa State in the North-East, where we also have Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba and Yobe states. In this zone too, the PDP and APC will have a fierce fight. The APC controls four states while the PDP controls only two in this zone.”

In his piece, 2019: Atiku vs. Buhari, a former Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to ex-President Jonathan, Mr Reuben Abati, stated that Atiku, just like Buhari, had a strong political machinery in the North.

He wrote, “Atiku came into the limelight through the late Shehu Yar’Adua political machinery: the People’s Front of Nigeria, which later became the People’s Democratic Movement.

“Yar’Adua, who was murdered in prison by the late General Sani Abacha government, used that platform to build bridges across Nigeria. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo was Yar’Adua’s friend, (and) they were both Abacha’s prisoners, and he would later prove his loyalty to the man who previously served him as Chief of Staff, by anointing his junior brother, Umaru Yar’Adua as Nigeria’s President in 2007.

“It was Atiku Abubakar, not Umaru Yar’Adua who inherited the Shehu Yar’Adua political machinery. In fairness to Atiku, he has kept that machinery alive, oiling it over the years such that there is no part of Nigeria where you do not have a PFN-PDM cell. Atiku’s emergence has automatically re-activated those cells.”
He added, “Politically, even members of the ruling All Progressives Congress see Atiku Abubakar as one of their own. There is no major player in this country who has not had the opportunity of interacting with Atiku at one level or the other. To every other constituency, Atiku is saying Nigeria must be restructured. He poses a real threat to President Buhari’s second term ambition.

“Senator Kwankwaso, now the main PDP politician in Kano State, will divide the votes in Kano in Atiku’s favour. The South-East and the South-South may not vote for Buhari. In the South-West, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the godfather of Lagos State politics, has every reason to give Buhari ‘an Ambode treatment'."

An Abuja-based lawyer and political commentator, Mr Aliu Mustapha, also noted that with the North having the highest number of registered voters in the country (39,021,964, according to INEC as of January 2018, as against 34,020,986 in the South), the zone remained the hottest battleground for both Atiku and Buhari.

He said, “The North has always shown better disposition when it comes to voting and I don’t expect this to change in 2019. Many southerners travel abroad or monitor elections on the TV or social media.

“Hence, both Atiku and Buhari will have to battle for these people’s votes in 2019. A lot of factors will come into play and you can’t readily tell who is going to win. Both are strong politicians in the region.”

Shortly after Atiku emerged the PDP presidential candidate on Sunday, the Convener of the Save Nigeria Group and Senior Pastor of the Latter Rain Assembly, Tunde Bakare, said the 2019 presidential race would be a robust fight between two “old eagles.”

The cleric stated this during his Independence Anniversary State of the Nation address titled, The Road to 2019: Quo Vadis, Nigeria?

According to him, the 2019 presidential contest between Atiku and Buhari will be an “Eagle versus Eagle” and not “Eaglet versus an Eagle.”

Stating that he wasn’t campaigning for Atiku, Bakare said, “I wish President Muhammadu Buhari the best in 2019. He has the power of incumbency and he will do his best to win the election, but Atiku is not going to take ‘no’ for an answer when the two forces collide in the election.

“I can’t say Atiku will win or lose. You see, I am not advocating for him. Among all the aspirants who contested the PDP’s ticket with him, he is perhaps the most cosmopolitan, he is a Wazobia man.”