Nigeria’s Senate President Bukola Saraki said on Wednesday that given the prevailing circumstances in the country ahead of next month’s elections, he sees no pathway to victory for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) at the polls.
Saraki, who is also the director-general of the Atiku Presidential Campaign Council, said President Muhammadu Buhari’s support base in the three geopolitical zones of the North has weakened in the past three and a half years. He expressed confidence that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Atiku Abubakar, will clinch victory at the February 16 presidential poll.
Speaking in an interview on AIT’s breakfast show ‘Kakaaki’, which was monitored by our reporter, Saraki said in every part of the country the PDP presidential campaign trail has been to, there have been complaints of serious hunger in the land, poverty, concerns for security, among other negatives.
“If you recollect in 2015, majority of the security concerns was in the North-East, the issue of Boko Haram terrorists particularly in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe. But today, if you move across to the North-West the challenge is in Zamfara, even in Katsina, in Kaduna; in some of the states there are serious security challenges that people cannot even go out. That was not there before,” Saraki said.
“In the North-Central, of course, places like Benue, Plateau, a lot of killings and we have seen that as one of the things that we’ve picked up concerns about. And, of course, the issue of the economy,” he said.
Saraki said looking at all of these and the analysis of the present political realities across the country, he doesn’t see a pathway to electoral victory for the APC.
“From what we see, in the North-West, which should have been a stronghold for the president (Buhari), you see the kind of turnout we are getting in the North-West. In the North-West if you remember in 2015, he won by 75 percent. We are not seeing that now. You saw our rallies in Jigawa, you saw our rallies in Sokoto. Today the North-West is down about 50:50,” Saraki said.
“If you go into the North-East, you could see also that we are doing very well. He (Buhari) won by 80 percent, he is not going to get 80 percent in the North-East. North-Central that APC won in 2015, a lot of states have moved; they are not there.
“As I said, we were in Owerri, in the South-East, yesterday (Tuesday). It also shows that South-East is our strong base. When you see that, you see there is no pathway to victory for the APC and that’s why we are watching attentively to see what tricks they have up their sleeves.
“I am very confident that our candidate will win because he has the right solutions for the current time and he has the capacity to drive what is required now,” Saraki said.
Saraki also commented on the ongoing attempts to illegally remove the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen, saying, “I keep saying these things, we can’t weaken our institutions.”
CHUKS OLUIGBO
