2019: Arewa pastors’ visit not a guarantee to secure second term – PDP tells Buhari

The Peoples Democratic Party has said the recent visit by some northern pastors to President Muhammadu Buhari won’t stop his imminent defeat in the 2019 presidential elections.

The party described the visit as an “exercise in futility.”

It said that desperation was making the Presidency to procure the support of individuals who “masquerade as religious leaders.”

It said the Buhari Presidency’s hiring of supposed ‘Arewa Pastors’ was a second attempt to orchestrate fake endorsements ahead of the 2019 election.

It listed the controversial Martin Luther King Jr Award as another “procured endorsement.”

PDP said both endorsements, which it said had turned out to be fake, were, to say the least, “despicable and betrayed the nervousness of a sinking leadership, desperately trying to save its face, having been rejected by the people.”

A statement signed by the National Publicity Secretary of the party in Abuja on Sunday, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, said it was heart-rending that because of the desperation of one man, the integrity of Nigeria’s seat of power had again been ridiculed.

He said that it was sad that religious world had noticed how groups and the Christian Association of Nigeria disowned the “northern pastors.”

He said, “Having failed to gain any endorsement from reputable international figures, such as Bill Gates and the Martin Luther Kings Jr group, the Presidency has now … resorted to cheaper ways and means, particularly, along the unregulated and porous religious and sectional lines.

“It is now overtly manifest that the Buhari administration is ready to even stage anything, no matter how ignoble, including fake rescue missions, to deceive Nigerians.”