Former Zamfara State Governor and Director-General of the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council, Senator Abdulaziz Yari, has said the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, Atiku Abubakar, and his rival in the Nigeria Democratic Congress, Peter Obi, stand no chance against the incumbent President and Presidential candidate of the ruling party, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The Senator representing Zamfara West made the remarks on Friday at the State House, shortly after meeting with President Tinubu.
Speaking with State House correspondents, Senator Yari noted that unlike Tinubu, none of the two candidates has a support base that cuts across the North and South divide in the country.
He recalled that the immediate past President, late Muhammadu Buhari, could not win the presidential race when he was fielded twice as candidate of the defunct All Nigerian People’s Party ( ANPP) in 2003 and 2007 and once as candidate of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change ( CPC) in 2011, as he maintained that in the three instances, he did not secure support of electorate from the southern part of the country.
He said: “We are talking of the president of the country, and this president, who, by God’s grace, Almighty God used him to support Atiku some time back, and at the same time to support Peter Obi.
“So if Allah uses me to support you, there is no way Allah will use you to bring me down. I mean, they cannot bring him down. Let me give you one scenario. If you don’t know, can you say that the ADC candidate today in the southern part of the country can beat his chest and say he has control of one state in the south? And I don’t think Peter Obi, who used to be my colleague, can beat his chest.
“Can he say he has one state he can control in northern Nigeria? So this calculation shows us that even if you have control of 80% of the south, if you don’t have anything in the north, you cannot make it. If you have 80% control of the North, if you don’t have any state in the South, you can’t make it, and that’s what it is.
“Look at Buhari of blessed memory. He had control of over 70% at that time, over 11 states in the North, and had no control of one in the South. He couldn’t make it all the way.
“And today, I’m sure Asiwaju has control of more than 10 states in the south, in the conservative estimate, more than 10 states in the south, and I believe he has control of more than 10 states in the north. This is the calculation; it is not rocket science.”
The DG, APC PCC, also argued that the performance of Tinubu in the last three years would sway votes in his favour.
“President Bola Tinubu, since the time he assumed office, has turned around the situation that he met on the ground; still, the economy is moving. So I think we have done enough that we can tell our opponents about what we did.
“We are not promising. We are doing it, and we are going to continue.”
Speaking on his meeting with President Tinubu, the former Zamfara governor also declared that the PCC to be chaired by President Tinubu himself would be formally inaugurated next Wednesday at the Presidential Villa.
“The President asked for me to come and brief him on where we are, and to discuss the timetable for the state visits. And by God’s grace, his team, I, and Mr President himself, we have agreed on how it’s going to be done. We have put forward a proposal.
“The inaugural meeting is going to be done on the 14th of this month. That’s next Wednesday at the State House banquet hall, and by God’s grace, on the 24th of October, we’re going to do our flag off campaign in Kaduna, inshallah, and then we outlined our state visits to each and every place where we will go, and then President has approved them. And so we are going to hit the ground running by the 24th of October.“
