Buhari’s campaign group tells Atiku to give up

The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) has advised the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, to give up in order to avoid a humiliating defeat at the polls on Feb. 16.

BMO made the call in a statement signed by its Chairman, Mr Niyi Akinsiju, and the Secretary, Mr Cassidy Madueke, on Friday in Abuja.

The statement said the group gave this advice in reaction to the defection of four top notches of the PDP to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The group said its advice was informed by the way and manner Atiku as well as the PDP were daily losing prominent members of the party to APC.

PDP’s deputy national chairman (North), Sen. Babayo Gamawa, was among key officials of the party to defect to the APC.

The group said that such defections were massive.

“We have nothing but sympathy for Atiku at this time that he has lost some of his trusted supporters who have abandoned him to team up with President Muhammadu Buhari.

“Nothing could be more demoralising than losing the number two man of your party with few days to what is almost certain to be his last attempt to clinch a seat that he had coveted since the 1990s,” the group said.

Gamawa was also a member of the party’s Presidential Campaign Council from the North-East geo-political zone where Atiku also hails from.

The Buhari group, therefore, advised Atiku to pull out of the Presidential race to save himself from what is almost certain to be a crushing defeat.

The group added that the defection of the former PDP National Chairman, Adamu Muazu, who is known in political circles as the ‘game changer’, was also instructive.

“If there is any defection that is bound to hit Atiku hard it is that of the former Bauchi governor, Adamu Muazu, whose election as the PDP National Chairman, just before the 2015 elections, was a popular choice.

“If there are people who know Atiku well, Muazu certainly would be numbered among them and he has now joined the governing party, the APC,” the group said.

This, BMO also said, was a clearer message to undecided voters across the country that President Buhari is the better choice.