Eniola Olayemi
Former ally of President Muhammadu Buhari and spokesman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential campaign organisation, Buba Galadima, has claimed that Atiku Abubakar will win the Northwest in the February 16, presidential election.
According to him, Atiku, the presidential candidate of the opposition PDP will beat incumbent President Buhari of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), 60-40 per cent In North West.
He described the mammoth crowd always noticed at Buhari’s campaign rallies as a sham, claiming that about N20 million were given to local government chairmen to “purchase” the people always seen at APC presidential rallies.
He stated this when he appeared on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, adding that Atiku will divide votes in Katsina, Buhari’s home town, 50 to 50.
“I want to say that in the Northwest, namely Kebbi, Zamfara, Sokoto, Kano, Jigawa and Kaduna, Atiku will defeat Buhari 60 to 40 per cent on the minimum” Galadima said.
In the North East, he argued that he did not see how Buhari will defeat Atiku there except for Borno State where he said there may not be any election because “20 local governments will be voting from Maiduguri IDP camps”.
He claimed that Atiku will also defeat Buhari both in the Middle Belt and in the Southwest. On elections in South East and South-South, Galadima said he was certain PDP will return nothing less than 85 per cent.
On Buhari’s campaign rallies, he alleged thus, “Every campaign that Buhari goes to in an APC controlled state, local governments are empowered with twenty to forty-five million naira to purchase people and bring them to these rallies, and suddenly Buhari starts addressing the crowd and they all disappear because they must fulfill the contract for which they were brought in”.
Galadima went further to claim that Atiku gathered twice the number of people that Buhari gathered at their Kaduna and Kano rallies.
“One Local Government rally by Kwankwaso is more than the global rally that was organised for Buhari after spending nearly one billion naira” he said.
Describing Buhari’s government as an administration of exclusion that is operating on the theories of nepotism and bedevilled by corruption, Galadima said, “It is shameful that somebody who rides on the issue of corruption will raise the hand of a thief, certified crook, and say this is our candidate.
“In Kano, you have seen the President raising the hand of a corrupt individual, a corrupt person that the whole nation has seen taking bribes, they are talking of corruption, that man belongs to them.
“They brought people from Niger, my good friend the Sultanate of Damagaram and two governors from the Niger Republic, they are already telling us that they will bring aliens to vote for them.”
On the Sunday endorsement of Atiku Abubakar by leaders of the Ohanaeze Ndi Igbo, Northern Elders Forum, Pan-Niger Delta forum, the Middle Belt Forum, and a faction of Afenifere, Buhari’s former friend said those who endorsed Atiku are respected elder statesmen and that their action was a clear show of unity by tribes and regions that previously do not see eye-to-eye.
