2019 election: PDM picks Pastor to battle Buhari, Atiku

By Emmanuel Afonne

The Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM) has picked Pastor Habu Aminchi as its candidate for the 2019 presidential election.

The party at its 2018 elective convention which ended in Abuja, Sunday night, affirmed Aminchi’s candidature through a unanimous voice vote of delegates from the 36 states of the country and the FCT.

Chairman of PDM Chief Francis Igwebuike said the National Executive Council (NEC) and the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party would continue to uphold the ingenuity of its founding father, late Shehu Musa Yar’Adua.

Igwebuike noted that it was the first time PDM as a party was presenting a presidential candidate and that it would mobilise to dislodge the President Muhammadu Buhari’s All Progressive Congress (APC) in the 2019 general election.

“As I am talking to you today, we have governorship candidates after successful primaries in states of the federation; we believe in actualities and the actuality is that PDM has come to stay.

“Nobody will destroy the legacy of Yar’Adua because his disciples will uproot and throw traitors away.

“Most of the people emerging from primary election of different political parties today are bye products of PDM, we are very proud because we are the mother of all political parties in Nigeria,” Igwebuike said.

In his acceptance speech, Pastor Aminchi assured to restructure the security architecture of the country, fight insurgency and ensure total defeat of Boko Haram.

He explained that a 10-point agenda which include revitalising the economy, standard education system, security, agriculture and quality healthcare, would be his major focus if elected Nigeria’s president in 2019.

The PDM presidential candidate also promised to restore the dignity of Nigerian workers through enhanced and prompt payment of salaries.

According to Aminchi, the party will pick a female vice president to encourage women’s participation in politics.

“Our slogan is ‘New Nigeria, hope for all’, and I have decided to take the bull by the horn and rise to the challenge to save this country from those whose only desire is to make mockery of it.

“We want a country that will be a paradise for all; a country that will be a pride of Africa and for our unborn children.

“Our children deserve quality life; President Muhammadu Buhari and Atiku Abubakar are human beings like me, but with God, I am going to dislodge them.

“We are going to revive democracy if elected because rigging which has killed democracy in Nigeria will be no more.

“By the grace of God, there will be nothing like rigging in the 2019 general election because God will mount his angels at the polling units; Nigerians will be shock with what will happen,” Aminchi said.

He regretted that the economy of Ghana and some other African countries were now doing better than Nigeria, which was adjudged the best economy in Africa few years ago.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had given political parties a deadline of Oct. 7 to conclude primary elections in preparation for the 2019 general election.

NAN reports that Aminchi led a group of pastors from the Northern part of the country to endorse Buhari’s candidacy in 2015.