The President Muhammadu Buhari 2019 Presidential Campaign Organisation has dismissed the defection of some All Progressives Congress (APC) lawmakers and other members from the party, saying it would not have any negative impact on Buhari’s re-election.
The group, in a statement on Sunday by its spokesman, Festus Keyamo (SAN), said the defection of the lawmakers and the Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, would not harm the President’s re-election.
He stated that even if two more governors, who were said to be planning to defect, left the APC, it would not affect Buhari.
Keyamo stated, “The President won with wide margin in the past in some states without the support of majority of the politicians from those states who moved recently to join the opposition party.
“Also, we are all witnessing the significant gains Mr. President is making in several places where he lost in the past, notably in the South-South and the South-East.”
According to him, 12 northern states of Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Yobe and Niger have 30 million registered voters.
He said that these “are states the President had consistently won with considerable wide margin in past elections, especially in 2011 and 2015.”
This, he said, was achieved despite the fact that most of those states were being controlled by political parties other than his own.
“In 2011, when the President was in the Congress for Progressive Change, despite being states with sitting opposition governors, National Assembly members, state assembly members and local government chairmen, the President posted close to 11 million votes against all odds, defeating all his rivals in these 12 states.
“In 2015, despite the majority of these states being in opposition after the merger that formed the APC, the President posted close to 11 million votes again with the PDP not scoring up to 20 per cent of the votes.
He recalled that in Kano, during the 2011 presidential election, the President scored 1,624,543 votes as the CPC candidate, while in 2015, he had 1,903,999 votes as the APC candidate.
Keyamo also analysed the effect of defections in nine states Buhari lost in 2011, but won in 2015. These, he said, included Lagos, Oyo, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Kwara, Kogi, Adamawa and Benue.
He stated, “The five south-western states have registered voters strength of more than 14 million out of the about 20 million voters in these nine states. Today, those five states are being controlled by the APC. Ekiti will join before the 2019 elections after the Governor-elect, Kayode Fayemi, is sworn in.
“All the political gladiators in those south-western states that helped to tilt the election in favour of the President in 2015 are still solidly with him and more have joined. The entire defunct ACN structures that moved into APC are solidly behind the President.”
