2019 Elections: PDP, APC clash on Atiku, Buhari’s chances in South-West

Sade AdewaleDecember 27, 2018

0 2 minutes read

The Chairman of the All Progressives Congress in Ondo State, Mr Ade Adetimehin, has predicted a landslide victory for President Muhammadu Buhari in the South-West in the 2019 presidential election.

Adetimehin, who said this in a telephone interview with our correspondent in Lagos on Wednesday, stated that the South-West was a stronghold of the progressives, saying the Peoples Democratic Party would come a distant second in the presidential poll.

But the Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr Diran Odeyemi, said in a separate interview with our correspondent that the Yoruba would show Buhari through their votes that they were truly angry with him.

The APC chairman said Buhari’s administration had done well in the geopolitical zone and that the administration had given due recognition to eminent sons and daughters from the South-West in the running of the affairs of the country.

Adetimehin said based on these and the fact that the six south-western states were being governed by the APC, Buhari would easily defeat the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar and other contestants in the race.

He said, “The South-West cannot be taken for a ride by those who are seeking to return to power by all means. The people of the zone have integrity and that integrity is called Omoluabi, and as it is now, the APC in firm control of all the states in Yorubaland. So, with this now, President Muhammadu Buhari will come top in all the six states and the candidate that will follow him will come a distant second, maybe the PDP’s candidate.

“President Buhari will win in the South-West and he will also win in other geopolitical zones and will be the eventual winner of the election. Buhari won in the South-West in 2015 and whatever they believe in, nobody can change it. Ondo State is for Buhari and the entire South-West is for him as well.”

But the spokesperson for the PDP said, “Whoever is saying Buhari will win in the South-West is day dreaming and would soon wake up to the reality on the ground after the election. The people are hungry and angry and this is the worst Christmas they have celebrated.

“Alhaji Atiku Abubakar is well known to the people in this geopolitical zone and they also know him that he is a liberal person with capacity to run the affairs of the country much better than how the cabal is doing now.

“There is no way the APC can win in the South-West. Everybody knows what they did in the two governorship elections held in the South-West this year. If they are prevented from rigging, they will lose woefully.”

The APC chairman and the Ondo State Governor, Mr Rotimi Akeredolu, had earlier in the day distributed 18 campaign buses branded Buhari-Osinbajo to all the local government areas in the state.