Muhammadu Buhari Will Seek Re-election In 2019

The debate on whether President Muhammadu Buhari will seek re-election or not by the time his first term is over in 2019, has been laid to rest.

At least for now.

The Presidency has all but confirmed that Buhari’s name will be on the ballot come the 2019 general elections.

It was a provoked revelation, but we’ll take it.

The President’s spokesperson, Garba Shehu, issued a strongly worded statement to media outlets this week with the disclosure that “Nigerians won’t dump Buhari in 2019”.

That’s like saying: “Hey guys, we’ll be asking you for votes again when our first term is up in 2019”.

Shehu was reacting to a statement from Alhaji Buba Galadima, who is a former national Secretary of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).

Galadima had said Nigerians will abandon Buhari come 2019 because the President has frittered all the goodwill he amassed in the run up to the 2015 elections.

Galadima also said all the political parties in the land will abandon Buhari come 2019.

“Definitely, I know that General Muhammadu Buhari will not want to run on the platform of any party because he has already cast aspersion on party politics and politicians. So we would try to find out on what platform he would contest if he wants to be president in 2019. On what vehicle he would ride, but definitely not on a political party,” Galadima said.

According to Galadima, the APC as a political party has been abandoned by Buhari.

“The party had shared invitation letters for Board of Trustees (BoT) meetings and it was aborted. You now have to find out who aborted those meetings. We only met once as the national caucus of the party. Let’s assume that the president doesn’t like the party executive, he’s now the president, he can find a way of easing them out.

“Have you ever seen in the history of Nigeria, where in the secretariat of the ruling party, water is disconnected, electricity is disconnected, salaries of aides and workers are not paid for six months? It’s shameful, it’s disgraceful and we claim to be in government. We are not saints.”

Galadima’s declarations riled the Presidency so badly, Shehu was tasked to pen an equally furious response.

The Presidency described Galadima’s comments as “utterly ridiculous”.