Unic Press UK: The Kaduna state Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, asserts that the path toward a second term of office for the incumbent president Muhammadu Buhari is already thoroughly paved even if the former People’s Democratic Party members (often referred to using the acronym nPDP) who rebelled against the former ruling party withdraw their support of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Buhari.
El-Rufai, who Tuesday addressed State House correspondents in Abuja, said:
“Who are these new PDP people that are threatening? This is Kwara, Kano, Sokoto, Adamawa, Rivers but I don’t think Amaechi is part of them. So let’s take these four states, go back to 2003 and check. Buhari then under ANPP won in all these four states. Go back to 2007, Buhari won in these four states. Even when Shakarau was running as a presidential candidate in 2011, Buhari defeated him in Kano. And, I have no doubt in my mind that even if the people threatening to leave, leave, it will have absolutely no impact on the presidential elections, the president will win Sokoto, Kwara and Adamawa easily. Kano is already in the bag, I mean if you saw the crowd that welcome the president without the former governor Kwankwaso, Kano has always been the president’s base. To me that is not the issue, the issue is that they have written, they have expressed grievances, some of the grievances are legitimate and should be looked into.”
The threat to exit the APC fold came to the fore again following a meeting last week between the representatives of the group [nPDP] and the APC Chairman John Odigie-Oyegun, during which Abubakar Kawu Baraje of the nPDP camp raised issues bothering on marginalization, reinforcing the position conveyed in their April 2018 letter ‘Request for Redressing of Grievances of the Former New PDP Block within the APC‘.
President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn in on 29 May 2015. His tenure ends on 29 May 2019. He has yet to respond to the complaint of the nPDP.
