Senator Ayodele Arise has said that there is no metric by which any candidate currently running for the presidency in 2019, can defeat President Muhammadu Buhari.
Arise who was a guest on Channels Television breakfast show – Sunrise Daily said no other candidate can defeat Buhari because “there is a propensity for people to trust him” more than the others.
The Ekiti state lawmaker said President Buhari has “demonstrated times without number that he has integrity” stressing that it is on this premise that he (Arise) is an ardent supporter of the APC government.
Reacting to claims by Alhaji Buba Galadima that Buhari will be defeated in the forthcoming election, Arise said there is “no arithmetic, there is no ratio by which we can conclude that any candidate that is currently running for this election can beat Buhari”.
Buba Galadima had said on the same show that by the next Democracy Day in Nigeria, President Buhari would have handed over to the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar.
Galadima also argued that in refusing to sign the electoral bill, President Buhari is not seeking peace, rather he is “denying other candidates a level playing field, transparency and access to power”.
Senator Arise, however, dismissed Galadima’s claims, saying even without the peace accord being signed, President Buhari is committed to a free and fair election.
The APC henchman said Buhari’s experience before he came into office is one which the President will not want any other candidate to experience.
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The lawmaker said he trusts Buhari and has not seen any tendency for violence within the ruling All Progressives Congress.
He said the APC will abide by the peace accord because there is “no desperation on the part of the President”.
Arise said the opposition party is plagued by the fear of the unknown and “the culture of impunity that was prevalent in the previous 16 years of PDP regime”.
He noted the discrepancies within the electoral bill was a major factor why the President refused to sign it into law.
“We should lay a solid foundation when you have draftsmanship with such a huge error, and you expect the president to sign it, then we will be the laughing stock of the entire world,” Arise argued.
The parliamentarian further argued that if the errors were not detected then it is a different issue, adding “but we will still pay for it down the road.”.
He insisted that President Buhari has not said signing the bill will be left to another administration, but has asked the National Assembly to take a second look at the draft, fix the inconsistencies pointed out and resubmit in January.
