An analyst of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC Mr. Fidelis Unongo, said he is yet to see a candidate capable of defeating incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2019 presidential election.
Fidelis spoke on a program which also featured Mr. Omoyele Sowore, the convener of Take Back Nigeria Movement and a presidential aspirant in the 2019 presidential election on Abuja based talk radio station, WE FM on Tuesday.
Ezem Collins, a public affairs analyst, Anthony Ehilebor, a Peoples Democratic Party’s analyst and a member of APC, Akeem Akintayo were also on the program.
Sowore and Buhari
SaharaReporters Media
Unongo said Sowore has to work very hard to fulfill his aim of claiming the presidency in 2019 because the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari who is seeking re-election already had 12 million votes in the bank.
The analyst said, “I’m yet to see any candidate that will defeat President Buhari in 2019. If he is going to beat President Buhari in 2019, he is not going to sleep and I hope he is prepared not to sleep and really work hard,” said Unongo.
He added that President Buhari had always had about 12 million votes in every presidential election he had contested in since 2003, regardless of whether he wins or not.
He also argued that the Buhari administration had recorded some successes which will earn it additional votes.
According to him, Sowore must first look for his own 12 million votes to match Buhari’s guaranteed 12 million votes to stand any chance of defeating Buhari.
While faulting the claims of the APC, Sowore who is also the publisher of Sahara Reporters, noted that with the failures and inactions of Buhari’s government in various areas of national life in the past three years, the fabled 12 million votes are no longer a guarantee for him.
“I want to say that yes, President Muhammadu Buhari has 12 million votes that he takes to the bank every election, but that is minus the Shiites that were killed that is minus Dapchi people, that is minus Plateau, Benue where his herdsmen are running riot, that is minus Abuja, that is minus people who are not getting electricity water and people who have not seen any project from him. So, when you deduct all of that your mathematics will shock you in 2019.
Referring to the heated discussion between him and the Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu at Fresh FM Ibadan last week, the presidential hopeful pointed out that he has been in the business of public opinion molding and news dissemination for 12 years, and he could tell when a president is going out of office by their own design, calculation or miscalculation.
“I have been in the business of public opinion molding and I have been in the news business for 12 years. Having been through 7 presidents in Nigeria, I can tell when a president is going out of office by their own design, calculation or miscalculation. So, I had to let the minister know and prepare himself for the end of the regime in a democratic way. We just had to tell him the truth. I am also in the business of telling people the truth when they don’t want to hear it, “he said
Sowore said the President’s departure from Nigeria to the UK immediately after he announced his intention to seek re-election marks Buhari’s final exit from power.
“Mr. president officially left yesterday in two ways and I’m not Nostradamus – he has gone to London to seek his usual medical treatment, he has exited Abuja and the country and they wouldn’t even tell you when he is coming back. Secondly, when he declared that he was running, you could just see the reactions from Nigerians even the APC operatives here must have been shocked,” he said.
