The Chairman of the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) and a former Governor of Osun, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola has announced that 45 other opposition parties have formally adopted the Presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar as its candidate in the 2019 elections.
Oyinlola said this on Wednesday in Abuja at the opening of a meeting of the national chairmen of the coalition which comprises the main opposition PDP) and 45 other parties.
He declared that, “after a painstaking assessment of what we have across the coalition parties and after processing the candidates’ suitability, using these criteria, the steering committee, hereby, submits that a former vice president and candidate of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, is the best and his party the most virile of all the options before us.”
Oyinola, who was assisted by National Chairman of Progressives Peoples Alliance (PPA), Peter Ojonugwa Ameh said, “We, therefore, chose him as CUPP’s candidate for the 2019 presidential election.”
He charged members of the coalition to start work, reminding them that their main challengers were already in war mood, having launched what they called THE NEXT LEVEL.
He stated further that, “We must prove to them that we are the masters in this enterprise and tell them that Nigerian people would not follow them (the APC) to THE NEXT EVIL scheme they have designed for our country.”
This comes after a chieftain of the CUPP and national chairman of Rebuild Nigeria Party (RBNP), one of the parties that formed the coalition, Dr Japheth Ayanwu disclosed in an interview that “come 2019, we will present one presidential candidate. We have agreed, even before the MoU, that all the parties that come together to form CUPP would in turn vote among the presidential candidates of each of these political parties to pick the CUPP flag bearer for 2019.”
He also added that “CUPP is not a political party, but an amalgamation of political parties that come together to say that we must put an end to the sufferings of Nigerians: a lot of killings, widespread hunger. We decided that in order to put an end to the suffering of our people we must form a unity government before the election and immediately somebody emerges under the platform of the CUPP, you will see the manifesto of the coalition and the slogan and the campaign that we will present to Nigerians. I don’t have any doubt on my mind that Nigerians will agree with us.”
