Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari must think history is threatening to repeat itself as he watches his main challenger in February elections, Atiku Abubakar, do what he did three years ago: build a broad alliance to win power in Africa’s biggest oil producer.

Buhari, 75, rode atop a wide coalition to become the first opposition candidate to win a general election in the continent’s most populous nation. While Buhari tapped into a yearning to end years of corruption, Abubakar, 71, is capitalizing on the angst of the elite. He’s portraying himself as the friend of investors and ethnic minorities in his bid to oust the ruling All Progressives Congress.

“What is happening is that the elite now think there’s an option,” said Bismarck Rewane, chief executive officer of Financial Derivatives Co., a risk advisory group based in the commercial hub of Lagos. “Before it was almost a certainty it was going to be a slam dunk for APC. With Atiku, they now have a fighting chance.”

When Abubakar last week reconciled with his ex-boss, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, he took along influential Muslim and Christian clerics. It was a deft move in a country almost evenly split between a predominantly Christian south and a mainly Muslim north and racked by periodic outbursts of sectarian violence that critics say Buhari has managed poorly.

Political Establishment
Added to previous endorsements by most of the country’s ex-military elite, consultations with influential pressure groups in the north, southwest and the oil-rich Niger River delta, Abubakar appears to be having some success at cementing the backing of the political establishment.

“The implicit support of important religious leaders from across faiths is likely to give Atiku’s emerging campaign a further boost in a country where religious leaders wield mass influence,” Malte Liewerscheidt, London-based vice president of Teneo Intelligence, said in an emailed note on Monday.

The importance wasn’t lost on Buhari, who admonished religious leaders in a speech two days after the meeting about the perils of meddling in politics.

“Religious leaders should not be seen to involve themselves in partisan politics or political controversies,” he said. “Otherwise, they risk losing their status and public respect.”


There are ominous signs for Buhari. Despite strong support in the north, he failed in three attempts to be elected president until 2015, when he formed an alliance with key segments of the political elite and defectors from the then-ruling Peoples Democratic Party.

Many of those allies, including Abubakar, Senate President Bukola Saraki, Speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara and Sokoto state Governor Aminu Tambuwal, have deserted him. So have former army rulers such as Obasanjo and Ibrahim Babangida, who toppled Buhari’s military administration in 1983.


While Buhari promised in the last campaign to calm Nigeria’s various security challenges, including the war against Islamist militants in the northeast, the violence continues. The president’s popularity has waned in the central region he won in 2015 over widespread perception he’s not done enough to end the grazing conflict that has devastated the area. Investors also blame Buhari for worsening a recession that resulted from an oil-price drop two years before he took office and deterring investment by imposing capital controls.

Anti-Corruption War
Buhari is still touting his anti-corruption war that critics say is mainly targeting his opponents. He signed an executive order on Oct. 13 that bars about 50 people, said to be facing graft investigations, from leaving the country.

He’s also expected to continue to question whether Abubakar, considered one of the richest people on Nigeria’s political scene, acquired his wealth legitimately. A former top customs official, he later became a major shareholder in Intels Nigeria Ltd., an oil-service company.

While the momentum may now appear to be in favor of the opposition, victory is far from certain, according to analysts including Liewerscheidt and Rewane.

Abubakar’s choice of running mate, Peter Obi, a former state governor with a good track record, may help lock down votes in the southeast, where the majority Igbo people have complained about a lack of national representation since their leaders tried to secede from Nigeria in the Biafra civil war in the 1960s.

But the choice of Obi also carries the risk of tilting votes in the ethnically Yoruba-dominated southwest, a key swing region where Vice President Yemi Osinbajo comes from, firmly in favor of the Buhari.

“This election is going to boil down to who wins the southwest,” Rewane said. “It’s true that Atiku’s campaign experience gives the PDP a chance. But then the APC is not going to fold its hands and lie down.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-17/opposition-candidate-gains-momentum-in-nigeria-presidential-race

Anyone else but the ill-educated Buhari with his criminal incompetence.
It's no wonder Fela called him a craze man. Animal in human skin.
Sick geriatric thieving bastard.

Atikulating & Atikunation wave sweeping across the nation.Atiku/Obi 2019.Nigeria must be salvaged from the present clueless, directionless, incompetence and oppressive government.

Such is bound to happen in a country where the The President fights Kwaruption (opposition) instead of corruption
A country where dead people are given appointments
A country where the cost of living is unbearable
A country where the President goes to UK to treat ear pain

Zo.bies ryt now.

deomelo:
By Dulue Mbachu and Elisha Bala-Gbogbo



Paid essay, we don hear.



NEXT>>>>>>>>>>>

but that charge and bail SAN keyamo. Wasn't paid. We hear.

I find the penultimate paragraph very annoying.....ethnically-Yoruba dominated South-west;
I am not from there,but I had my education there and lived almost all my life there...they have their bad sides and good sides.....
I do not support any zone to be painted with an ethnic colouration.....The SW will vote according to their consciences, forget the razzmatazz on NL....those who will vote the opposition will vote,same as those in the SW and SE who will vote the ruling party will as well vote......
I meet with people daily,and the hunger,insecurity,'gains' and 'starvation' now does not know any tribe....I do not know where the perception arise that certain people won't vote according to their consciences....they will...
On the other part,it will be perhaps the most difficult elections after 2015....the momentum is high..so I will like to appeal to all the media washmen for these 2 candidates,not to waste their time on propaganda,Those on the streets don't care anymore.....all of them there are thieves,the ones who will come in will still steal....

The question(s) will be what can you offer?,what is your blueprint to get us out of where we are?,Moving forward,tell us,if there are antecedents why we should trust you to do this?,When you get there,would you kill us all?,can we go to farm,protest against governments,can we have growth and development,a plan,how can we assist our growing young populace that has a direct significance on (in)security?
This will be the discourse,don't bother us about 'tales by moonlight',we don't care....

We will vote and vote rightly!

ddd

BMCs oya come and call bloomberg IPOB or Wawa Jews. Atiku hammering the dullard by February go humble Una last last.

It’s simply over for Buhari and his cohorts!

Welcome AtikuObi, the new choice for Nigerians out of this mess Buhari created in Nigeria.

Well, Nigerians are wiser now, Nigerians are not happy, all the protests that could not hold because of police and military intimidations would have to happen in the ballot boxes.

This election is going to boil down to who wins the southwest,” Rewane said. “It’s true that Atiku’s campaign experience gives the PDP a chance. But then the APC is not going to fold its hands and lie down.”

Yorubas should stop this nonsense hype. Figures from previous elections have proven that this assertion is false.

BacktoDaura is a national project

deomelo:
By Dulue Mbachu and Elisha Bala-Gbogbo



Paid essay, we don hear.



NEXT>>>>>>>>>>>

cry us a river boy.

The way things are happening, APC go soon change their broom, to cutlass

Who will in his right frame of mind support a lifeless regime. Bubu's fate is already sealed. Grandpa should go and play with grandkids.

Retired Generals are Atikulating and Obiligating
Nigerians are Atikulating and Obiligating
International communities are Atikulating and Obiligating.

Zombies where are thou

Don't be left out.

.

My hand dey pain me cuz I Don too slap today.

But take ur own too...... Marafuker!!!

Buhari's next four years is predictable:

1. More unemployment. You think clearing Nigeria's debt profile which has been thoroughly bastardized by Buhari's regime would change? You may be joking. Without the industries and manufacturing units? You think the #10k loan would be utilized? It has been expended to prepare pots of meal. And you think you'd suddenly bring back fleeing investors to come investing in Nigeria again, with this type of leadership?
2. Killings would be intensified and the Fulani herdsmen would become bolder than ever before.
3. Buhari would rarely speak or appear in public again.
4. The dollar crisis would worsen
5. There would be little or no cabinet reshuffle. Same pack, the same results.
6. Nigeria would be more ethnically divided than ever before
7. The opposition would be completely destroyed. The fight against corruption would be used to tear the opposition to shreds
8. Nigeria would be the poverty capital of the world by a wider margin.
9. If you are thinking about an impossible miracle , remember that Buhari ruled for 2 years in the 80s and Nigeria witnessed its first recession. He would repeat the worst version of this feat if he goes for 8 years, especially now that he is older and less capable.

Fellow Nigerians, you have a choice to make in 2019. You can pre-order your VISA or save yourself from the next 4 years of Buhari's clueless government. Your future is in your hands. Unfortunately, only the living enjoy the privilege of ethnic or religious bigotry.

These are not prophecies; they are bound to happen.

Only foools think Buhari will remain president of Nigeria come 2019.

time for Atiku

Sai Atiku,














but if you come fellow f*ckup, I no go follow you blindly like zombie.

Buhari is not 73. He is almost 90years.


God bless Atiku

Ok

He is President in the Waiting, Buhari is gone.

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