Former governor says president will lose in 2019

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May 18, 2016 12:22 PM

Unless he returns to the path of revamping the economy and assuage the suffering of Nigerians, President Buhari will lose the 2019 elections if he contest, a former Kaduna State governor has said.

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Alhaji Balarabe Musa who stated this in an exclusive interview with Pulse on Wednesday May 18, 2016, added that it is already impossible for Buhari to return as President in 2019 because many Nigerians who supported him in 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015 have lost confidence in him.

"As the president, Buhari has the means of transforming everything but obviously, it is quite clear that Buhari's popularity before 2015 elections and now have gone down drastically," Balarabe said.

Balarabe Musa who is the first civilian governor of Kaduna State said Buhari can only make it in 2019 if he can completely tackle the issues he promised.

"For instance, if today, he abandoned the leading role of the private sector in the economy in favour of the leading role of the state, he can't return because there will be cries everywhere."

"But if he ensures peace, equality, justice and promote human development, he can still win in 2019," Balarebe said.

"But as it is now, it is already impossible. Because as the president, he has the means of transforming everything. In Nigeria today, it is from one hardship to another."

"His military administration was passive. For one reason or the other, when he came to the civilian race in 2003, 2007 and 2011 he was forgiven. And now unfortunately, he has lost the confidence of Nigerians who voted him despite the military atrocities," Balarabe added.

Speaking on the current strike action, the former Kaduna State governor, Balarabe said the strike is more than in order, "and we support it absolutely."

"Our reservation is that, the strike should not be embarked by Labour alone. It should be jointly with NLC, TUC, CSOs, political parties and patriotic individuals."

"They should organise and conduct the protest under the leadership of NLC, TUC, Political parties and CSOs so that in the event that one of these opted out, Nigerians should have the benefit as it has always been the case since the Babangida era as Head of State of Nigeria. It also happened in 2012," Balarabe said.

"Other members should continue with the protest even if one or two members opted out. As it is today, we don't know the real position because there are many people saying industrial court has stop the protest which I don't think is the duty of industrial court to stop. NLC is saying that the protest will go ahead. Some are also saying that TUC has opted out of the protest and so on."

"Now, what we should realised is that, it took a long time to bring Labour along in any National Protest against bad government. Labour was convinced to join in the protest and now that they have joined, they still have some tendencies of opting out before the aim is achieved."

"But even if one or two of them opted out of the protest against fuel increment, we have to realised that the people involved want good and quality of governance to Nigerians. We want good things for Nigeria. It is not a labour affair alone."

"The issue of how much fuel should be sell should be estimated by informed bodies. But all we know is that it should be easier for Nigerians to get access to cheat fuel than the non-oil producing countries. If we are an oil producing country, we should have free access to fuel at cheaper rate," Balarabe Musa added.

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