In an interview with BBC’s Mayen Jones, monitored on Thursday, Atiku, who is seen as President Buhari’s number one challenger, was asked what he would do if he loses the election. “The point is that I am not even going to lose but everybody knows that I have always accepted if I lost in the past, but this time, I am not going to lose”, he replied.
Asked if he expects next month’s election to be free and fair, Atiku said “that is no, because I have not seen any evidence that this government is actually willing to offer a free, fair and credible electoral process. We have seen what they have done in their by-elections where they have deployed members, police; security forces sometimes to harass voters, sometimes to raid voters that they believe are for the opposition”.
On his concerns for the fairness of the election, Atiku Abubakar said “we are working hard and that is why I am appealing to the international community also to work together with us to make sure the elections are not only seen to be free, credible and fair, but they are actually are”.
And if the results don’t go the way he thinks they would go, Atiku said “we will of course consider what went wrong and if we consider what went wrong. If it is something that requires rectification by way of litigation, or any other thing, we will go there in a peaceful way”.
When it was pointed out that Nigeria has two main political parties, and that it may be a two party system, the former Vice President said “it is a very young democracy, it is evolving. It is not fully developed and it is still developing”.
The PDP presidential candidate, who described Nigeria’s democracy as “a developing democratic process”, was asked why he thinks he should be president when about 60% of Nigeria’s population is under the age of 65. “I am not stopping anybody who wants to be president”. Pushing further, the journalist asked if Atiku shouldn’t be clearing the way for a younger candidate. His response was straight. “I am not stopping any young man from vying, and there are so many of them. So why do you want to bring discrimination here because of my age? If I feel like I have the health, the strength, the capacity to do it, why should it be an issue?”
He also spoke on how he would tackle the issue of insurgency if elected. “I intend to sit down with the leadership of the armed forces, then review the operations over the years to know whether the operations were successful or not and how we can review them to make sure they are effective and defeat Boko Haram within the shortest possible time”.
When the journalist asked whether Atiku thought the army was doing enough, hi responded that “I don’t think the armed forces generally are doing enough, not just the army. What I think is responsible is the fatigued leadership in the armed forces. They have been there for too long, they have no new idea. You are deprived of a younger generation of leadership that has the necessary skill and training that could be deployed in the operations of the armed forces”.
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