By Lekan Bilesanmi

The sudden mainstream and social media popularity of Major General Muhammad Buhari (rtd), an All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential aspirant, may not be unconnected to what sources described as a plot of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to have President Goodluck Jonathan square up against the former military Head of State in the 2015 presidential contest.

Buhari and Atiku

Sources at the Wadata Plaza headquarters of the ruling party said the strategy may not be unconnected with the move to prod the opposition APC to foist Buhari as its candidate.

The ruling party, it was disclosed, may have perfected the art of defeating the former Head of State at the polls.

According to a reliable PDP source, the Party’s inner caucus is desirous of having a three-time beaten Buhari as the flag bearer of the opposition APC instead of other more politically savvy contenders such as Rabiu Kwankanso, or former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

“The way things are now, nobody in this government can vouch for a landslide victory for the President come 2015; never mind the hypes from the so-called supporters of the administration,” said the source, who pleaded anonymity to avoid being slapped with anti-party charges .

“Notwithstanding the Tsunami of media deluge, the situations on ground at local and global levels do not support his re-election in a free and fair elections in 2015” the source said.

“Even a child could x-ray the Nigerian situation today. Is it the issue of the bungled Boko Haram insurgency and abduction of Chibok girls, unemployment, kidnapping, polarisation of the country, general insecurity and a host of others,” he added.

He recalled that of recent, top notch of the PDP have not hidden their utter disgust and phobia for the emergence of any other candidate as APC presidential choice except Buhari.

He alluded to the condemnation and denigration of the likes of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar on account of their alleged close relationship with the President of South Africa, and that country’s lukewarm diplomacy with Nigeria, as part of the strategy of the PDP to browbeat the APC in this direction.

Meanwhile, a political strategist from the South-east privy to the plot disclosed that the recent online poll by a media aide to President Jonathan in which the incumbent trailed Buhari for considerable time before the poll was shut down but not before Jonathan had marginally overtaken the former military Head of State was part of the ruling party’s strategy to push for the ascendancy and inevitability of the Buhari candidature.

“That poll was aimed at showcasing the ascendancy and inevitability of a Buhari candidature and by so doing assure of his pre-eminence in the APC primaries. This will ensure distraction from other candidates and by so doing set up the APC for a political defeat of unimaginable proportions,” the source noted.