The All Progressives Congress, APC, may have a hard time winning the Presidential election if Rabiu Kwankwaso picks the ticket as Presidential aspirant, of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, come 2019.

Kwankwaso who spoke on Arise TV’s Nigeria: the road to 2019 programme on his ambitions and chances of challenging Buhari in the Presidential race said “it is difficult to remember anyone who is well prepared to do the job of the President than myself; in terms of preparation, capacity, politics, linking and working with people to achieve results”.

“I have the best chance of defeating Buhari in 2019. Even Buhari knows that as PDP stands today I have a better chance to challenge him and succeed in the North West, North of Nigeria and the country at large. I’m sure people are now wiser and will go for candidate that will challenge the incumbent; especially in his primary constituency (Kano)”.

He however admitted that all the aspirants in the PDP have the capacity to lead the country, and “even at that you can start ranking on who has the capacity to win the primary election there after you go to winning the secondary election and then running the government. 2019 is not a year of experiment, it is a year that the right person has to rule, based on antecedent, capacity and understanding of the politics. Today as we have it, we have challenges of security etc. and as it is today, if there is credible, free and fair election today between the APC and PDP, PDP will win the election”, he said.

“People have to aspire and if there’s no aspiration you wouldn’t be where you are today. We all have our ambitions and as long as it doesn’t harm anybody; as long as it supports other people then there’s nothing wrong in having an ambition”.

Dispelling speculations that the APC could not accommodate the size of his political ambition which was why he defected to the PDP, Kwankwaso said, “That is not correct. I was one of the founding members of the PDP. The situation as it were at that particular time, we (my colleagues in the PDP) thought that there was the need for some change at that time and I’m so happy that, that was then and that brought some tension in the country and APC won the election with our support”.

“I’m so happy to say that now that we’re able to see the two sides of the coin; we were in PDP, we effected the change and now for the last 3 years we were in APC I personally came to the conclusion that PDP was much better”.

He added that there are mistakes in the APC which he’s not sure they can correct at this time. “When he was elected, for 5-6 months there were no ministers and nobody was doing anything in the country and you don’t leave a country like that you have to go for action”.

“I think Buhari wasted a lot of time and up till now we are harvesting the consequences. I contested with him and he won the election and I worked so hard for him. The mistake started when he wasted so much time and also the way and manner people were assembled in the government. Politicians must understand that in any democracy there are competent people who are there and have worked so hard and have everything to make sure that the administration succeeds”, he said.

He faulted President Buhari’s choice of selecting cabinet members, according to him, the President made the mistake of ignoring the people from the party and “just going out there to pick people to start working in government; people who had no history or understanding of the government itself and that’s one of the problems that people, especially our supporters were not happy about.  I think it should be noted that politicians as much as possible should try and carry along those people who have the capacity to perform in government and give them the opportunity to do that”.

On the elections won so far by the APC, he said that  he’s sure everyone knows PDP won all the elections because” we saw what happened in those States where the APC was deploying 30-40 thousand policemen and doing all sorts of things, especially this last

election. We all know and have seen that PDP won and the matter will be taken to court like the one in Ekiti as well. I believe that with the judiciary we have now that they’ll be able to do the right thing”.

By: Theresa Igata