As 2019 approaches and politicking reaches a feverish peak in the country, a poll conducted on social media has revealed that Nigerians prefer the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Atiku Abubakar to the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari for the post of President in the 2019 General elections.
This followed two weeks of intense primaries by various political parties across the country to select candidate for various levels of political office in the country.
Of particular note were the primaries of the two major political parties, The PDP and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) which did not fail to disappoint as it was full of drama and intrigue in various state chapters of the party.
The highlights of the primaries featured the outgoing governor of Lagos state, Akinwunmi Ambode who tried desperately to keep his job and failed and the drama between Senator Shehu Sanni and Governor El-Rufai of Kaduna state.
The biggest highlights of the primaries however were the emergence of the Presidential flag bearers of the PDP and the APC.
Both parties had held their conventions on the same day albeit in different venue and under different circumstances.
In scenes reminiscent of pre-World War II Germany, incumbent President, Buhari had contested against himself in the APC presidential primaries and won by a whopping 14 million votes; even the first lady was appalled and forced to speak out on social media.
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The presidential primary of the PDP on the other hand was surprisingly adjudged to be the best primary election held in the history of the party and Nigeria as a whole due to its peaceful and overwhelmingly decisive nature.
This had come as a surprise to many because 9 heavy weights including a former Vice President, s senate president, a former senate president, a sitting governor and several former governors and ministers were vying for the presidential ticket of the party.
At the end of the day however, former vice-President, Atiku Abubakar had won the election with a modest 1,532 votes to the support and cheers of all the delegates at the venue.
The news also sparked celebrations across the country as most people apparently believed that Atiku was capable of wrestling power from incumbent President Buhari.
Consequently Herald carried out a poll on twitter to know the preference of Nigerians between the two major candidates ahead of the 2019 polls.
The twitter poll which had 1, 121 votes had 63% of the respondents indicating their preference for Atiku while 37% opted for Buhari.
Several of the respondents also reiterated that their votes will go to Atiku as a protest vote against the inadequacies of the APC led Federal Government. While several others bemoaned that the country had been reduced to selecting between the Lion and the Wolf to lead a nation of sheep.
Whatever, the outcome of social media polls, the real battle for the soul of Nigeria comes in 2019 and it promises to be an exciting and thrilling event.