2019: Atiku’s senior brother kicks, supports Buhari against brother ||| NEWS CORNER

• Former education minister, Alhaji Birma Dauda, has predicted the outcome of the 2019 presidential election in favour of President Buhari – Dauda said though the contest will be tough, President Buhari will emerge victorious

• The ex-minister said though Atiku is his ‘younger brother’, he will stick with his ‘friend’ (Buhari) in 2019

Former minister of education, Alhaji Birma Dauda, has said the presidential contest between President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and ex-vice president Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will be a tough election.

The former minister, speaking with The Sun in an interview, however, said President Buhari will emerge victorious. He also expressed optimism that the 2019 elections will be peaceful.

READ ALSO: 2019: Mbaka blasts Buhari, predicts doom

Buhari 2019: Nigeria needs young, visionary leaders, not old, “rust brains” — Oni

“The presidential election will to a large extent determine the outcome of other elections.

In this direction, people will stay with Buhari, they will vote for the president irrespective of the smear campaigns going on and agitations from various quarters.

“People have seen him to be reasonably conservative, and he is already an incumbent and not many people will like to go adventurous and start shifting ground from the realities of today to uncertainties.

The election is going to be peaceful, and with that, I believe Buhari will be returned as the president,” he said.

Asked about people’s opinion that President Buhari has not performed well, Dauda said: “Nigeria is a country of more than 180 million people, with a substantial number of them holding individual and iconoclastic opinions, therefore our diversity implies that people will express themselves depending on their viewpoints; depending on what they expect, and if your expectation is extravagant, you are likely to be disappointed if these extravagant expectations are not met, and therefore, a large number of people will feel disappointed; a large number of people will feel that what they wanted to see happen has not happened.

ALSO READ: Presidential race: Detective Nwanti withdraws, drums support for Buhari

“Every time there is an election, there will be a sharp polarisation, which at the end of it is not going to materialise because people will coalesce around and settle a lot of issues about certain personalities, and I believe, irrespective of the views of certain people whose expectations Buhari has not met, the end result is that he is going to be reelected as the president.”

Dauda said though Atiku is his younger brother, President Buhari is his friend and he will stick with the latter in 2019. His words: “Yes, Buhari is my friend, while Atiku is my younger brother, but if my friend, whom I have worked with previously, is pitted against my younger brother for an election, I will stick with my friend. “Both of them mean much to me, but sincerely speaking, I will stick with my friend because it will be unethical to drop my friend and stay with my younger brother, especially when I’m in APC, and Buhari is the APC flag bearer, while Atiku, my younger brother is in PDP, and I’m not in PDP, therefore, you will expect me to follow the party, which I belong and vote Buhari.”