Since President Muhammadu Buhari’s return from his 103 days health pilgrimage, the administration has witnessed different political scheming that may limit the chances of the ruling party, All Progressive Congress (APC), come 2019 when the administration is expected to seek re-election.
Although often downplayed as party or family affairs, APC has gone through different trials from within the party in the short period of ascending from an opposition party to the ruling party. Many of the woes were compounded by the President’s sickness and its inability to fulfill all and/or most of his campaign promises.
Recently, the National Chairman of the party, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun has insisted that President Buhari remains the presidential candidate to beat.
Downplaying the effects of President Buhari’s ill-health which many believed slowed down governance and affected the delivery of the party’s manifestoes and campaign promises.
Also supporting Chief Oyegun’s pledge of automatic ticket to President Buhari is a chieftain of the APC, Mr Osita Okechukwu, he argued that the move would assist the president to consolidate on his achievements
However, with a contrary opinion another member of the National Working Committee (NWC), who spoke on conditions of anonymity said that the major concern of the party should be to see how Mr President can serve out his first tenure and more importantly deliver the unfulfilled campaign promises that convinced Nigerians to massively vote for him and the party.
“How can you even be talking about second term for Mr President when he has not finished the current term. As far as we are concerned, automatic second term ticket for Mr President is not a consideration for the national leadership for now and we don’t want to respond to mere speculation because he has not even formally informed us of such an ambition.”
However, whether President Buhari will receive automatic ticket depends largely on these political gladiators. The former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, Governors Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna and Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto respectively as well as Senate President Bukola Saraki among others