The Director of Strategic Communications of President Muhammadu Buhari’ s campaign team, Festus Keyamo has assured a landslide victory for the president despite recent defections of members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) at the National Assembly and across the states to the opposition, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
He said APC may be in for a landslide victory for the President in 2019 “despite all the noise from our ‘noisy neighbours.’’
The campaign team insisted the defections of some the aggrieved members will not deter the president’s re-election.
According to a statement signed in Abuja by Keyamo, the team said the defections would even be more if the much-rumoured two more governors’ defection from the APC.
The Buhari’s campaign team also revealed that from the demographics it has on the historic figures and the present realities “these defections will have little or no impact on the chance of Mr. President’s re-election.
“The president won with large margins 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 South-East.
“The following 12 States, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Yobe and Niger, with over 30 million registered voters, are where the president had consistently won with considerable large margins in past elections, especially in 2011 and 2015.
“This was achieved despite the fact that most of those States were being controlled by political par- ties other than his own.
“In 2011, when the President was in CPC, 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 the 12 states mentioned above.
“It is instructive that in these election cycles, there were presidential candidates of northern extraction (eg, Shekarau and Ribadu in 2011). Besides, Kaduna had a sitting vice president in both elections.
“As we can see, any defection within these states would have little or no consequence on President Buhari’s chances as he had always won those states, irrespective of the party in power in the states.
“For example, in the much-touted Kano, in the 2011 presidential election, President Buhari scored 1.624 million votes as CPC candidate, while in 2015, he had 1.903 million votes as APC candidate.”
Keyamo confidently concluded saying “despite all the noise from our ‘noisy neighbours’, we may be in for a landslide victory for the President in 2019.”
