A former Minister of Education, Alhaji Birma Dauda, has predicted victory for President Muhammadu Buhari over his main challenger, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
He also said that, contrary to popular belief, the 2019 general election would be “peaceful”.
Dauda said these in an interview published by Saturday Sun, noting that Nigerians would stick with Buhari despite his conservatism.
He said, “The presidential election will to a large extent determine the outcome of other elections. In this direction, people will stay with Buhari, they will vote for the president irrespective of the smear campaigns going on and agitations from various quarters.
“People have seen him to be reasonably conservative, and he is already an incumbent and not many people will like to go adventurous and start shifting ground from the realities of today to uncertainties. The election is going to be peaceful, and with that, I believe Buhari will be returned as the president.”
Giving his reasons for supporting Buhari, the All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain stated: “Buhari is my friend, while Atiku is my younger brother, but if my friend, whom I have worked with previously, is pitted against my younger brother for an election, I will stick with my friend.
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“Both of them mean much to me, but sincerely speaking, I will stick with my friend because it will be unethical to drop my friend and stay with my younger brother, especially when I’m in APC, and Buhari is the APC flag bearer, while Atiku, my younger brother is in PDP, and I’m not in PDP, therefore, you will expect me to follow the party, which I belong and vote Buhari.”
Asked why he would choose his friend ahead of his brother, Dauda said, “I’m in APC, not in PDP, and belonging to a political party is like belonging to a cult. Example of how cults work is that you find your brother in another cult, but you go about maiming and killing each other and things like. We are in a political party and we want our party to win. Buhari is the flag bearer of APC and I’m a prominent member of the party, even though Atiku is my brother, but he belongs to another political party. There is a filial relationship between brothers, but you know the bond between friends. Buhari is not only my friend, but we also belong to the same party and I worked for the actualisation of his victory.”