Dele Momodu: Atiku spent 30 years building bridges required to become president

Dele Momodu, director of strategic communications of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential campaign council, says Atiku Abubakar is the most experienced candidate in the race.

In a statement issued on Monday, Momodu explained how Abubakar will record the votes that will help him win the presidential election.

He said the former vice president would win in most of the northern and southern states.   

“The bridges required to cross to victory have taken Atiku 30 years to build,” the statement reads.

“A presidential candidate cannot depend totally on votes from outside his home base to win this election.

“It is a fact of history that whenever the south produced two strong candidates, the dominant northern candidate won, such as in 1979 and 1983, Obafemi Awolowo and Nnamdi Azikiwe versus Shehu Shagari.

“Bola Tinubu is far weaker today in the south-west and Awolowo was by far more formidable, while Obi is the new Azikiwe (the first Governor-General and President of Nigeria) in the South-east, and Kwankwaso is the current Aminu Kano.

“Atiku Abubakar will dominate the north-east, north-west, north-central and south-south. Tinubu may pick a few states in the North and South-west but won’t have enough to win.

“Tinubu has not been able to lock down the entire South West not to talk of the whole of Nigeria. Over-reliance on bribing the electorates will fail. Hoping to rig brazenly will also fail spectacularly.

“I repeat, the entire North and the south-south will make Atiku the next President. Atiku will still be competitive in the south-east and south-west. Wherever Obi is number one in the East, Atiku will be number two. Wherever Tinubu is number one in the South West, Atiku will be number two or vice versa.”

Momodu said Atiku would “be the first to cross the line of recording 25 per cent in 24 states”.

He said the former vice president would get 25 per cent “automatically” in the 19 states of the north and “will pick six in south-south automatically”.

“He will pick more than 25 per cent in all of the five states in the South-east, a traditional base of PDP, and same in the South-west,” Momodu said.

“Wherever Obi is number one, Atiku will be number two or vice versa. I do not know of any state PDP that will not record 25 per cent and eventually win the overall popular votes.

“The North will not vote a ‘fake Muslim’ in the name of a pretentious and mischievous Muslim/Muslim ticket. The scam is dead on arrival.

“The north-east will never vote for a number two position when they’ve been chasing the number one since 1966. The North West will not abandon an Atiku for a Tinubu who’s well known for his iron grip on Lagos state since 1999.

“The south-west itself knows it has the most controversial and palpably weakest candidate in this race this time and would humbly and readily accept its fate with equanimity.”