Former Nigerian Minster of Information under the Babangida Military Presidency and All Progressives Congress (APC) Chieftain, Prince Tony Momoh has boasted that incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari will win next year’s Presidential elections even if the elections were to be rigged by any party.
He also claimed while granting an Interview to the Sunday Independent Newspaper that President Buhari warned members of the party not to rig the elections on his behalf saying he would vacate Aso Rock should he leave – a claim many would find hard to believe.
Tony Momoh also asserted that due to the number of ‘Federal projects’ ongoing and completed in the South-South and South-East of the country as well as the caliber of politicians who have defected to the ruling APC; President Buhari would win the 2019 elections by at least 25% of the votes from both regions.
According to the former minister;
“We are going to have at least 25 percent votes because there is hardly any state in the South- South and South- East where Buhari will not have up to 25 percent. That is certain. And if there is going to be any rigging, it will not work because Buhari has said nobody should rig for him.”
He then went on further;
“If there is going to be any rigging, it will be in the favour of the incumbent, so we don’t have a disadvantage. Those who were rigging before and writing up results cannot now write up results for anybody and if they do, it will be for Buhari but the President has warned that nobody should write up results for me. If I lose, I will go” he concluded.
The recent claim by the APC chieftain comes on the heels of the tainted elections and bye-elections organised by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Ekiti, Kogi, Rivers and Imo state respectively.
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The elections were marred with massive vote buying, ballot snatching and election violence which left two people dead in Kogi State.
In the run up to the 2015 elections which was won by the APC, Tony Momoh, former information minister and chairman of the CPC before the merger which formed the APC had told Nigerians to ‘stone them’ if the APC did not perform in its first two years in office.
It has been three years and incumbent President Buhari has asked for another term of four years in office because his reforms have just kicked off.