Nine more political parties, yesterday, announced their adoption of the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, as their consensus candidate for the 2019 general elections under the umbrella of the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP).
The CUPP had adopted Atiku two weeks ago as consensus candidate for the 2019 polls.
Nine parties, yesterday, signed a memorandum of understanding with the existing 44 parties in the CUPP, bringing the number of parties in the pro-Atiku coalition to 53.
The new parties which were received into the coalition by the chairman of the CUPP Steering Committee, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, are the United Patriots (UP), Save Nigeria Congress (SNC), Peoples Coalition Party (PCP) and Reform and Advancement Party (RAP).
Others are the Alliance of Social Democrats (ASD), We The People of Nigeria (WTPN), Change Party (CP), New Generation Party (NGP) and Alliance National Party (ANP).
Oyinlola announced that another set of six political parties had already submitted applications to be part of the coalition.
He asked President Muhammadu Buhari and the APC to get ready to handover, saying the ruling government would suffer “excruciating defeat in 2019.”
Oyinlola, a former governor of Osun State, said the pulling out of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) from the CUPP was basically because it was not able to realize its political agenda within the CUPP.
