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The frontrunners in Nigeria’s presidential race hit the campaign trail on Saturday in a major push to convince voters a week before the polls.
More than 90 million people are registered to vote in Nigeria where President Muhammadu Buhari is stepping down after his two terms allowed by the constitution.
Waving from the top of an open-air double-decker bus, the ruling party’s candidate Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) paraded through the streets of Maiduguri in northeast Borno state.
Several hundred supporters ran alongside the convoy as they made their way to Elkanemi Sports Centre where more people with flags and banners were gathered to hear the candidate speak.
A political veteran and former governor of Lagos, Tinubu is expected to stage a final rally in his hometown on tomorrow.
In nearby Adamawa state, the main opposition candidate Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) also made his entrance aboard a double-decker bus into Mahmud Ribadu Square in the city of Yola.
A huge crowd awaited Abubakar, singing, dancing, many decked out in traditional clothes, with a camel even among the throng. “Atiku,” as he is widely known, was vice president from 1999 to 2007 and is making his sixth attempt at the presidency.
“He’s long waited for this opportunity, we’ve been praying for a unifier, a man that brings about unity in the country,” supporter Victor Dogo said.
Outsider candidate Peter Obi from the Labour Party (LP) was not on the campaign trail on Saturday but took to social media to call on his supporters, “the Obidients”, to rally in several cities across the country.
In the capital Abuja, several hundred Obi supporters wearing colourful attire marched from the centre to the city gate, chanting and blowing vuvuzula horns.
“We are taking our country back,” said Maureen Kabrik who supports Obi. “He’s the only one that stands out, he is the only one who has been speaking to the people.”
Another candidate vying for the top job in the nation, Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), was in northern Taraba state’s town of Mutum Biyu where crowds cheered him on. — Africanews
Online Reporter