2019: Where are the Presidential aspirants?

Since Atiku Abubakar, former vice president and Business Mogul, declared his interest as a presidential candidate, his declaration came with a bang and ended up in a whimper. Then came hounding from security agencies. Intel, a firm Atiku has interest in, was suddenly known to be evading tax, and operating license became under scrutiny. Rumors were flying around that some of the foreign Directors of his companies were humiliated out of the country. But This magazine’s inquiries indicates that Atiku is still consulting Nationwide.

Hints came that David Mark, former senate president may also be interested in the presidency, and the anti graft agency, EFCC, invited him for monies allegedly stolen during his tenure as Senate president. The story died down.

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Since then it has become a crime for anyone to declare interest in the presidency as long as he is not a light weight that could be ignored. Only one aspirant, Thomas Ikubuese, has been campaigning on social media , on the platform of the National Conscience party. But the party is yet t do its primaries to determine their flag bearer.

With the INEC new timetable, it appears that all parties-including the new coalition parties-are waiting for the party primaries. But the ruling party appears to capitalize on the absence of big wigs in other parties to insist that there is no alternative to the incumbent president, Muhammadu Buhari.

Unfortunately, the  general consensus is that the the current leadership is a failure, and that Buhari should not contest the election in 2019. With the four musketeers- Olusegun Obasanjo, Abdulsalami Abubakar, Ibrahim Babangida and Theophilus Danjuma-set on his not contesting, Buhari has fallen back on Daura elders Myetti Allah for endorsement.

Until the time that all parties have done their primaries when they are the pay flag bearers, no aspirant is expected to raise a voice.