Opinion: "11 Reasons Why Atiku Will Lose In 2019 Election"

1. PORT HARCOURT DOLLARS: He overspent on the PDP Primary in Port Harcourt, out of desperation. Spending between $9,000 and $12,000 per delegate was too much, some of that money should have been saved for the campaign proper. Also he entered into too many deals and political concessions in PH, in order to get the ticket, those deals are now coming back to haunt him.

2. PETER OBI:He made a big mistake in the way he chose Peter Obi as running mate. He didn’t consult widely, no wonder the Southeast Governors are not happy with him, and will very likely betray him. Even if he was still going to choose Obi, he should have at least made an effort to carry stakeholders along.

3. NO ABUJA MONEY: This is the first time the PDP is running a presidential campaign without access to Federal Funds. PDP campaigns in the past have always been done with Abuja money, not personal resources. A lot of people haven’t realised this yet, but when find out in January 2019 that money is not flowing like they thought, they will have second thoughts about Atiku.

4. CLOWNS: The Atiku campaign is being fronted by many of the same characters who led Goodluck Jonathan astray. Characters like Reno, FFK, Ben Bruce and Osita Chidoka. These are people who everything they touch goes bad.

5. TOO MANY LIES: The Lies are getting too much, another big sign of desperation. They lied that Peter Obi’s account was frozen, lied that Atiku called Lt Col Sakaba’s widow, lied that Nigeria has only 2 million cars, lied that Atiku employs 100,000 staff, lied that Atiku will pay his staff the new minimum wage. It’s like Atiku and Obi are now in a big competition to see who is the bigger liar. Soon they will tell us LYING is not CORRUPTION.

6. SOUTH WEST: The South West is not happy at all with PDP. The PDP has not treated the SW very well at all. The zone has been deprived of the party chairmanship which was originally zoned to it. It has also been deprived of Campaign DG and Party Spokesman. The previous holders of these two positions were from SW, but they were kicked aside. The highest ranking SW person in the Atiku campaign is Fayose, that’s how seriously Atiku rates Yoruba people.

7. NORTH: Atiku is not as popular as he would like you to believe in the North. His 8 years as VP did not convince anyone he had the interests of the masses of the North at heart. All he was interested in was amassing personal wealth, to expand a business empire that mostly benefits him alone. You can see that many PDP aspirants in the North are using PMB’s photo to campaign, instead of Atiku’s own. Many aspirants are ashamed of identifying with a candidate with such a strong local and international reputation of corruption.

8. CONFUSION: Out of desperation the Atiku campaign has appointed EIGHT spokespersons. This is a recipe for confusion, and the confusion has already started. You can already see the nonsense statements all the spokesmen are issuing, including the one that claims Buhari owns Keystone Bank, when in actual fact it is Atiku and his in-laws who own it.

9. NO UNITY: There are too many strange bedfellows in the Atiku Campaign, and there is nothing central to unite all of them. At least you can say APC is united by the belief in PMB and his vision for Nigeria. Nothing like that to unite people behind Atiku, apart from the belief in quick money and access to public resources. And everyone knows that money is not a good binding agent; it will divide more than it can unite.

10. FAILED PLAN: The Atiku Plan was an instant flop. It showed that all the time they went to spend in Dubai writing it was a waste. They must have been focused on other things in Dubai, maybe the lies and fake news strategy they have been trying to roll out. The only thing people can remember from the Atiku Plan is that Atiku wants to sell NNPC to his cronies (the same way he sold things when he was VP), and that all his plans are 6-year plans, there is nothing he intends to achieve in 4 years.

11. SOUTH EAST: Atiku is seriously banking on the Southeast to win the 2019 election. Another sign of the bad judgement that Obasanjo has talked about in the past. Yet his (Atiku’s) base in the region is smaller than GEJ’s base in 2015. A lot of Igbos have had their eyes opened, and are seeing all the infrastructure work PMB is doing in the SE. PMB will get more votes from the region in 2019 than he did in 2015.