2019: “Obasanjo Will Choose Atiku Over Buhari” —Daniel

Gbenga Daniel, a former governor of Ogun State, has said faced with the
two options of President Muhammadu Buhari and former Vice President
Atiku Abubakar, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo will choose Atiku as his
preferred candidate for the 2019 presidential election.

Reacting to a claim that Obasanjo had vowed that Atiku will not become
president in his lifetime at Press conference in Lagos, Daniel, who is
the Director-General of the Atiku Abubakar Campaign Organisation, said
from recent happenings in the country, Obasanjo may have seen Atiku from
a new perspective, based on the failures of the Buhari administration.

Daniel who said he is optimistic that Atiku will become the next
president also projected the former Vice President’s support for
restructuring and his business background as among other reasons why he
would make a better president of Nigeria in 2019.

He said: “When people take positions, they take them based on the
information that is available to them. And as this progresses, sometimes
you now discover new things, you face new realities, I think that a
number of people have been quite unhappy with the progression that has
taken place.

“People are facing a new reality, I won’t be surprised if Olusegun
Obasanjo is starting to change his position. It does appear that if we
are not careful, we will continue to retrogress in the quality of people
that occupy political position.

“I guess and I hope I am correct, President Obasanjo has seen it that
maybe he has other information. And in any case when you are faced with a
situation you have to choose one of two evils.

“I am aware that President Obasanjo said that he doesn’t think that
Buhari will make a good president but at the last minute something
happened, maybe he got better information he then changed his mind and
if he has changed his mind on that occasion, I think he can also change
his mind (about Atiku).”

Projecting the potentials of the Atiku candidacy, he said that a
formidable candidate like the former vice-president was needed to divide
the 12 million votes that had historically been won by President
Buhari.

He said: “Apart from this, politics and of course you will also know
that he is speaking the language of the Southwest which is
restructuring; that is what the Southwest has been clamouring for
decades. Of course, he is speaking the language of the people from the
Southeast and South-South which is talking about resource control.