By Baron Ike
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former Jigawa State governor, Sule Lamido are two core northern personalities that have great chances of standing for the office of the president in 2019 if feelers from the north are anything to go by.
Both politicians have also started showing interest in the office of presidency come 2019 with or without President Muhammadu Buhari wanting to continue in office.
Buhari’s first term ends on May 29, 2019, and many Nigerians, including members of his party, the All Progressive Congress (APC) would rather Buhari hands over to another party man from the north due to what many of them say is “not very impressive performance of the President.”
Atiku’s body language and public comments of late suggest he is in the race for the presidency in 2019, but the opposition within the APC and from Buhari’s loyalists (kitchen cabinet) makes Atiku’s ambition a hard nut to crack.
One man who wants to block Atiku’s chances is the governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, but the former vice president does not think El-Rufai has the capacity to stop his ambition.
But another core north politician who has done well to reignite his presidential ambition in a calculated clandestine mood is the former governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido.
He did ahead of the 2015 presidential campaign but caved to pressure from the then PDP leaders who wanted the former President, Goodluck Jonathan, to take another shot at the office of the President of Nigeria in 2015.
Lamido has been busy doing the political rounds in almost all the states in the country, particularly the People’s Democratic Party (PDP)-controlled states ahead of the official kickoff for politicking for 2019.
His party is not unmindful of Lamido’s ambition, more so as he did show keen interest to run instead of Jonathan during the period preceding the 2015 presidential election that eventually saw former Jonathan flying the flag of the PDP and losing to Buhari of the APC.
Armadanews investigation reveal that Lamido has been secretly raising structures in virtually all the PDP-controlled states hoping for when the whistle for electioneering would be formally blown.
A prominent PDP woman leader who stays in Katsina said they are considering either Lamido or Atiku to take the position of Buhari in 2019. She however did not comment on the platform with which Atiku could be seeking for presidency.
However, she was optimistic that Lamido will be in the race, noting that former President Olusegun Obasanjo has always touted the former Jigawa State governor as a good presidential material.
“For 2019 we will support either Lamido or Atiku. I am not sure people here will like to vote for Buhari again because they are complaining that they are suffering too much under him. In fact, they do not even want to hear his name again,” the PDP woman leader in Katsina who craved anonymity said.