2019: Ndigbo May Dump Buhari Again As Ezeife,Others Reject 2023 Presidency Offer

During the 2015 presidential election, the people of the South-east region threw their weight behind former President Goodluck Jonathan.

They were to be paid back in their own coins when President Muhammadu Buhari made his key appointments without considering any Igbo fit for the positions.

An ostensibly angry Buhari had said he would not take what he would use to compensate those who supported him overwhelmingly to give to the people who gave him only five per cent votes at the polls.

For some of the Igbo, the support for Jonathan then was anchored on the belief that it would be easier for him to support a president of the Igbo extraction after serving out his eight years in office in 2019.

The Igbo who believe in the tripod nature of the country have been crying of marginalization in the country, particularly as their zone has not had a shot at the presidency, which probably was responsible for their always seeking for a way to actualize the dream.

And as if the other parts of the country know the desire of the Igbo, they always raise the hope of the people of the South-east by telling them to support them so as to get power thereafter.

Therefore, Ohanaeze Ndigbo and some of the people of the South-east are again thinking that it would be easier for them to accomplish the desire after the eight years of the Buhari presidency since the South-west had served for eight years under former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Indeed, the apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, believes that the Igbo should better wait for 2023 when the coast would be clearer for the South-east zone to contest for the presidency.

The Ohanaeze Ndigbo President General, Chief Nnia Nwodo, who spoke through his Media Adviser, Chief Emeka Atamah, said the North should be allowed to serve its eight years after which it would be the turn of the South-east.

He pointed out that the eight-year tenure of the North was truncated when former President Umaru Yar’Adua died and power shifted to the South-south, saying that the North would have been adequately compensated if Buhari is allowed to complete eight years.

Then in 2023, he said, it would have become statutory for the Igbo to take a shot at the presidency, which has eluded the zone for many years.

But Sunday Sun findings revealed that the Ohanaeze Ndigbo position notwithstanding, the South-east zone might again deny President Buhari their votes in the 2019 elections.

This was also despite the concerted efforts being made by Buhari’s loyalists to convince the people of the South-east to support his re-election bid so as to have a better chance of producing his successor in 2023.

A cross section of Igbo leaders interviewed by Sunday Sun expressed divergent views concerning the proposal with many of them saying that 2023 promise was conceived to mislead the people again.

Recently, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustafa, had told a delegation of the Ebonyi State chapter of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), who visited his office, to “preach to the other South-east states that the shortest way to Igbo presidency is to support Buhari in 2019.”

Since that pronouncement by the SGF, many APC chieftains in the South-east have been unrelenting in marketing the offer to the people of the zone.

A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress and Director General of the Voice of Nigeria, Mr Osita Okechukwu told Sunday Sun that supporting Buhari in 2019 would, among other benefits, bring Ndigbo back into the mainstream of the Nigerian politics.

Hear him: “President Buhari’s victory in the 2019 presidential election presents 2023 as a landmark year for Ndigbo who genuinely want to end sulking, lamentation and agonising over decades of marginalisation. This is the antidote and will showcase our hard work and enterprise. The alliance with Buhari is surreal and realpolitik. Realpolitik, for more than any other event, 2023 will consolidate not only our fledgling

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