2023: Atiku’s Campaign Kicks As Fitch Predicts Tinubu’s Victory

Atiku’s campaign has rejected Fitch’s prediction of Tinubu’s victory in the 2023 presidential election.

Eko Hot Blog reports that the campaign ogranisation of Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), has rejected the prediction of the Fitch Solutions Country Risk & Industry Research that the presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, might win the 2023 contest.

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In a report released during the weekend, the subsidiary of Fitch Ratings, a global rating company, said the APC candidate had a higher possibility of winning.

The report, however, added that Nigeria might experience political unrest following Tinubu’s winning.

It explained that a victory for the APC candidate will likely trigger sentiments of perceived marginalisation among Christians while supporters of his opponents may take to the streets to question the fairness of the electoral process.

According to the agency, recent polls, which only capture a small fraction of Nigerians, have overstated support for the Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi.

It noted that Obi’s lack of support in Nigeria’s Muslim-majority North will make it difficult for him to win next year’s presidential election.

The report added that Obi’s popularity will most likely split the opposition vote, at the expense of the PDP.

Reacting to Fitch’s report on Saturday, the spokesperson of the Atiku-Okowa Presidential Campaign Organisation, Kola Ologbondiyan, dismissed the report as “merely contrived, imaginary and completely illusory.”

He said the report does not reflect the reality on the ground, claiming that Tinubu does not stand a chance against Atiku.

According to Ologbondiyan, the APC candidate is battling various issues that make him a weak opponent.

The campaign spokesperson also noted that Tinubu does not have a strong political base anywhere in Nigeria.

“Contrary to the report being peddled by the APC, Asiwaju Tinubu is battling with trust issues, stamina concerns, massive open rejection by a majority of voters across the country, the mass exodus from his APC into PDP due to the abysmal failures of his party in addition to his (Tinubu’s) self-confessed selfish motives for being in the presidential race,” the statement said.

“In reality, unlike Atiku, Tinubu has no strong, organic and reliable political base anywhere in the country and cannot get the required 25 per cent in the majority of the states of the federation.

“Across the North, the APC presidential candidate does not have a stable political structure with the daily decamping of hordes of Nigerians in the region who voted for the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) in 2015 and 2019 now crossing over to the PDP to support Atiku in the 2023 elections.

“Tinubu has no solid base in the South-South and South-East where he has been roundly rejected. Even in the South-West, the former Lagos State governor has been demystified as evidenced in his party’s devastating loss in the last governorship election in Osun State, a state considered to be his ancestry home, to the PDP.

“Asiwaju Tinubu has been booed in states of the South-West and he has lost his political allies, cultural institutions and foot soldiers in Lagos State and other parts of the South West because of his selfish posturing and trust issues.”

Ologbondiyan claimed that Atiku, on the other hand, has an organic followership across all demographics, urging Nigerians to disregard the Fitch report.

“The reality of the 2023 presidential election is that Atiku has the highest organic followership cutting across all demographics like age, class, ethnic, sectional and even political affiliations in the country as Nigerians believe in his proven capacity, competence, experience, readiness and will power to lead our nation at this point.

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“Nigerians should therefore disregard the said Fitch Report as it does not reflect the reality of the 2023 presidential election in Nigeria,” the statement added.

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