Osita Okechukwu, Director-General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), has said the South-East must rise up to the stiff challenge thrown at the region by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo’s claim last Saturday that the 2023 presidency will be guaranteed to the South-West.
Okechukwu said this on Monday in reaction to Osinbajo’s comment at the palace of the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi, that the South-West would produce the next president in 2023 if they support President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election in 2019.
Although Boss Mustapha, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), had at a rally in Owerri, the Imo State capital, recently said the Igbos would produce the next president should they support the incumbent’s re-election in 2019, Okechukwu said Osinbajo’s comment should be seen as a “wake-up call” to the region.
He said the vice president’s claim was constitutional, noting that the only way the South-East could counter the argument and produce its first president since the return of democracy in 1999 is to vote massively for President Buhari in 2019.
“The Vice-President’s call for Yoruba to vote for President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019 so as to have a shot at the Presidency in 2023 is constitutional and mostly importantly a wake-up call to Ndigbo.
“A wake-up call to Ndigbo in the true sense of the word that equity, natural justice and good conscience are the advantages on our side – for the South-East is the only geopolitical zone in the southern belt that has not presided over Nigeria since 1999, when the rotation of President convention took off.
“Our vote for Buhari will engender the support of his mass followers in the North, for Buhari has a vote-bank of 10 to 12 million voters, which is a big arsenal,” he said.
Appealing to the Igbos to “hearken to this clarion call” by voting President Buhari, Okechukwu claimed that the candidacy of Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, remains a pledge and not an actual reality.
He said: “On the issue of four years, Buhari’s remaining four years post-2019 is cast in constitutional stone, while Atiku Abubakar’s own is at best a pledge.
“Atiku’s manifesto is six-year plan.
“Therefore, Buhari’s option is the quickest and surest route to a Nigerian President of Igbo extraction.”
“We appeal to Ndigbo to hearken to this clarion call as all we need is to vote for President Buhari so as to reinforce the equity, natural justice and good conscience which is on our side.”
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