The Northern Elders Forum may have rejected the Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar. The Chairman of the Forum, Chief Paul Unongo in an interview with The Sun stated that Atiku was jumping from one political party to another because he has nothing to offer the country. He said President Muhammadu Buhari will still win elections in 2019 as the North is not ready to bring PDP back to power.
“What has Atiku got to offer Nigeria? Atiku would be in one party for two hours and he would abandon it and join another one for three hours and when he does not get what he wants, he jumps into another party. And now he is like saying Atiku must be president, Atiku must be president of Nigeria. There is no single person in Nigeria that must be president. I think money tries to make some people mad; they think they can buy anything they want and everybody.
“The North has no problem whatsoever and it is not only the North that elected President Buhari in the last presidential election. Buhari got average of the votes in virtually all parts of the country. Remember that Buhari contested for the primaries with Atiku and he beat him in that election thoroughly. Atiku did not even come second. Kwankwaso, the former governor of Kano State got more votes than him. People who are thinking that Atiku can do something when he joins the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are making a mistake.
"Nigeria has passed that way and left it behind for a long time ago. We are not impressed by Atiku who jumps from one party to the other and say oh! I have a lot of money and I must be president. Nigerians are not going to put such people in power. We love Buhari, a man of integrity and principle; you can predict him and when he says a thing, you can be sure that what he is saying is true. Buhari would win Atiku any day, anywhere and anytime.
“If the PDP likes, let them field Atiku. If he contests with Buhari, he would win Atiku by 9 o’clock in the morning. Buhari is a tested and trusted principled leader. We are not for sale and the presidency of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is not for sale. The presidency is not for the highest bidder. We in the North have no problem on who to choose between Buhari and Atiku. We are not divided. I used to say to everybody in Nigeria that we in the North are more radical than the South. We can accommodate both Buhari and Atiku but the North is mature politically and they know where to go and we are going to go where we should go. But we are not going to vote to bring the PDP back to power.
“Buhari said he would fight corruption and today, they are recovering piles and piles of money including dollars even buried underground. Nobody had done that before. He promised these three and has delivered on all of them. Everybody is seeing what he is doing. There is no doubt that he is better than Atiku and I can assure you that we would stay with President Buhari.
“I can predict exactly what the South would do. In the last presidential election, if you count the votes in the three geo-political zones of Southwest, Southeast and South south, Buhari still had the majority of the votes. We are going to repeat that in the 2019 general elections because the candidate that the PDP is trying to bring is not the type that you can compare with Buhari.
“If they can produce an Azikiwe that is truthful and transparent, people would go for him, because they believe that he would not change. If Nigeria can produce that candidate that would ensure what Azikiwe called pragmatic federalism, that person would be able to challenge any person or presidential candidate from the North. But until then, I have not seen that politician that can challenge Buhari in 2019"
“I expect is that there would be a free and fair election in 2019 and the better candidate would win the presidency. And it must be a president that would be for all Nigerians; it must not be an arrogant, rich and overconfident lazy candidate who feels he can jump from one party to the other to buy the conscience of the people," he added.
