These personalities are surely a match for President Buhari or any candidate of the APC in 2019 election.
Nigeria’s major opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has hinted that it has begun the search for a ‘sellable candidate’ who can match President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019. Since they are few people with popularity, political acumen, followership and economic power to stand a sitting government, the search would be a difficult task to achieve.
A senior member of the party, who pleaded anonymity, stated that this is to prevent a repeat of previous mistakes. And also, to avoid fielding an unpopular candidate in major elections.
“We have made mistakes in the past. We violated zoning and we paid dearly for it. We are considering going for a presidential candidate, who will withstand the predictable propaganda of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government. We want to get it right. If we want to win, we must get a better candidate; a candidate that is better than what the APC will offer because Nigerians will compare and contrast,” the source said.
On the criteria the party set for the proposed sellable candidate, integrity and corruption are major attributes being watched out for.
“The person must be clean; without any baggage and he must be knowledgeable and versatile. He must have adequate knowledge of how to turn the economy around. And you know, the first criterion is that he must be someone from the North because we have zoned the presidency to the North. The factor we are considering is the winning factor and the PDP family will not compromise this factor.”
Based on these criteria, here are five politicians the party can look at getting to their nod to fly its presidential flag in 2019.
1. Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau – former Governor of Kano state and ANPP presidential candidate in 2015
2. Alhaji Rabiu Kwankwaso – former Governor of Kano state, and first runner-up in APC’s presidential primaries in 2015
3. Mallam Ahmed Makarfi – former Governor of Kaduna state and Senator
4. Mr Donald Duke – former Governor of Cross Rivers