The Magazine had predicted that the presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar would defeat the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari in the February 16, 2019 election.
According to This Day Newspaper, the Economic Intelligent Unit (EIU) of the magazine expects that the next government “will be led by the PDP, although the administration will be fragile”.
In its reaction, BMO said that the prediction lacks empirical evidence and methodological credibility, and it is coming from a magazine that has a record of inaccurate predictions.
In a statement signed by its Chairman and Secretary, Niyi Akinsiju and Cassidy Madueke respectively, BMO said” “This is a prediction that will fail just as the same Economist Magazine’s failed when it said in its prediction that Hillary Clinton would defeat Donal Trump in the United States presidential election”.
“This Economist Magazine gamble is noxious, unintelligent, prurient and alien. It is fiction masquerading as facts and a nullity. To start with, the Magazine failed on how it arrived at this dubious conclusion. It also shows that the EIU and its task masters have a predetermined objective without taking into cognisance the realities on the ground”
BMO is of the opinion that virtually all the basis of assumptions by the Magazine are completely off the mark: “For instance, how can any intelligent person predict that the southern part of Nigeria would vote for Atiku when evidence on ground indicates huge support for Buhari”
“Also President Buhari’s achievements all over the nation and dividends of democracy to millions of Nigerians has put him in ase vantage position over every and other presidential candidates. Its social investments programmes, massive infrastructural development and agricultural revolution and diversification of the economy speak volume of president Bihari’s ability and successes in governance.”
