2019 election: Why Atiku may fail as President – Donald Duke
Donald Duke, the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) has said that the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP “baggage” will not allow its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar perform excellently if he emerges as President in 2019.
Duke speaking to newsmen on Thursday in Lagos said no matter how good a candidate’s intentions are, the person cannot perform if he becomes President on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), NAN reports.
The former Governor of Cross River state said that the aforementioned points about PDP is not to score a political point, but a fact he knew, being a former staunch member of the PDP.
“Even if I had emerged as the PDP presidential flag bearer, and win the election, the huge baggage the party carries will not allow me to do well.
“The corruption is huge. You need to be completely unshackled to perform amidst such obstacles without being pulled down.
“The PDP presidential candidate, Abubakar Atiku, is like an elder brother to me. I have known him from when I was 12 years old. The APC is not completely left out of the baggage. Hence, the need for Nigerians to change the culture of PDP and APC.
“You can see that President Muhammadu Buhari, with his stern stand on corruption, is still finding it difficult to navigate smoothly because it is the same corrupt persons that we are still battling. They simply joined APC from PDP,” he said.
Duke, a former Governor of Cross River, said that apart from Buhari, he is the only candidate among the 76 running for the presidency in 2019 that had a pedigree of being the head of a state.
According to him, he joined the SDP to provide Nigerians an alternative platform which would be a viable option.
“2019 is around the corner. The choice that Nigerians make is what they have to live with,” he said.
He, however, said that his campaign would be issue-based, devoid of mudslinging, pointing out that it was the mudslinging campaign in 2015 that contributed to PDP losing the election.
“I hope we don’t descend into what happened in 2015, as I can see it coming again. We should talk about things that affect us. Those are the levels we should elevate our campaigns to,” he added.
