Research unit of The Economist Magazine, The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), has predicted that the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will defeat the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in the upcoming 2019 presidential election.
EIU stated this in its latest country forecast overview on Nigeria that was obtained yesterday according to Thisday.
The EIU, which gave an array of reasons for its prediction, said even though it would be a close call, the opposition PDP would win the election.
It predicted slowdown in economic activities in Nigeria as politics takes centre stage.
The Economist’s report came to light a day after the New Telegraph published another research report by a multinational banking and financial services company, HSBC, which said a second term for President Muhammadu Buhari would gravely stunt the economic development of the country.
A group, Nigeria Consolidation Ambassadors Network (NCAN) had last week purchased N45.5million nomination forms for the president’s re-election bid in February 2019. Buhari remained unchallenged as at yesterday and collection of nomination forms closes today.
With 13 aspirants picking up the N12million PDP’s presidential nomination forms, the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the party, Monday, set up a 12-man committee to liaise with the contestants and work out the possibility of producing a consensus candidate from among them.
The London-based magazine, which also anticipated a depreciation of the naira, said further in its assessment that Buhari was fast shedding support from within the APC with governors and lawmakers defecting to the opposition en masse.
“Intra-party politics would be chaotic ahead of the poll and we ultimately expect the incumbent to lose power,” it said.