Secondus says Atiku will behave exactly like Mandela if elected President in 2019
He said Atiku’s reputation will not be affected by the negative impressions being created by the ruling party.
The national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Uche Secondus, has promised that the party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, will walk in the footsteps of iconic former South African president, Nelson Mandela.
Mandela was South Africa’s first black president, an anti-apartheid revolutionary who fostered racial reconciliation after being imprisoned for 27 years, garnering international acclaim for his activism. The Nobel Peace Prize winner is widely considered an icon of democracy and social justice even years after his death in 2013.
While speaking during an interview on Arise News on Tuesday, December 11, 2018, Secondus said Atiku’s reputation will not be affected by the negative impressions being created by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
He said the former vice president will act like Mandela if he beats President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2019 presidential election.
“I can tell you Atiku is going to be like Mandela in terms that he would devolve himself from any business. All these impressions being created by the opposition, he’s going to come out clean. He’s going to exactly behave like Mandela. He’s seen it all,” he said.
While it’s not immediately clear what particular Mandela attribute Secondus was referring to, he made the remark while responding to a question about the doubts surrounding Atiku’s well-publicised policy plan to privatise the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
While responding to an insinuation that the former vice president would sell the state-owned corporation to his friends, Secondus said the allegation is wrong.
“That is completely wrong. I think it was a misinterpretation. What the policy statement seeks to do is to bring everybody on board. Which way do we move forward? We’ve conducted affairs of the NNPC several years with heavy government interests.”
When quizzed over if this means that Atiku would sell off his private businesses if he’s elected, Secondus was evasive, simply noting that Atiku would “devolve” his businesses.
He promised that the PDP has learned from its 16-year rule at the federal level and rebranded and repositioned itself to return to leadership in 2019.
2019 presidential election
While next year’s election, scheduled for February 16, 2019, is expected to be keenly-contested between Atiku and Buhari, they both face competition from other candidates including Donald Duke of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Kingsley Moghalu of the Young Progressive Party (YPP), Obiageli Ezekwesili of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), Fela Durotoye of the Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN), and Omoyele Sowore of the African Action Congress (AAC).
Others are Tope Fasua of the Abundance Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP), Eunice Atuejide of the National Interest Party (NIP), Adesina Fagbenro-Byron of the Kowa Party (KP), Chike Ukaegbu of the Advanced Allied Party (AAP), Hamza Al-Mustapha of the People’s Party of Nigeria (PPN), Obadiah Mailafia of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), and many more.
79 candidates will contest in the election, the highest number ever in Nigeria’s electoral history.
Source: Politics
