The Chairman, Senate Committee on Establishment and Public Service, Senator Ali Ndume says the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar will be a walk-over for President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2019 general elections.

Ndume, who made the statement in Abuja on Monday at a forum organized by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) said the All Progressives Congress(APC) was not losing any sleep over Atiku’s emergence.

Senator Ndume said: “Next election is a walk-over with Atiku. We were anxious when PDP was to organize their primaries but when Atiku emerged, we were glad for so many reasons.

“Atiku was our Vice President for eight years and he was one of the most powerful vice presidents we ever had and we know what he did. He was under former President Obasanjo and in his (Obasanjo’s) book ‘Under My Watch’, he voluntarily described who the presidential candidate is.

“We all know where we were and where we are now. Had it been they are presenting a new person, someone that Nigerians do not know, that may have been a threat but with Atiku, no way.

“Let us analyze it. North West is where the president comes from and we are banking on our highest votes there and if you go to any part of the North West, you will realize that his popularity is unprecedented.

“Then if you go to North East, Buhari is a moral obligation.”

He claimed that despite the fact that Atiku hails from the North East, there was no record of him supporting or sending relief materials to the hundreds of people displaced by Boko Haram insurgents.

“We have to vote for him (Buhari) because we know where we were with the government of PDP in my state, including my local government, my town and even my house were taken over by Boko Haram.

“It was the government of President Muhammadu Buhari that salvaged the situation and now my people are back to our local government. Those that are trying to take over from him or compete with him were there before.

“Atiku was the vice president and one of the richest Nigerians ever but I cannot remember Atiku taking even a bag of rice to our people that are suffering in Borno and he wants to be our president.

“For me, this election is between Nigerians and the Nigerian corrupt. Atiku’s background is known. All the show of money from him, Saraki and others is what they got from politics, people’s money,” he added.