Officials of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration are bent on getting their principal re-elected for a second term in office not minding whatever channel is used.
One of such channels is the claims by top officials of the administration that Buhari will handover to two geo-political zones if they vote en masse to return the president for a second term.
Yemi Osinbajo, Vice President; Boss Mustapha, Secretary to Government of the Federation; Babatunde Fashola, Power Minister and Chris Ngige, Labour Minister are some of Buhari’s men who have openly made the claim.
While Messrs Osinbajo and Fashola keep narrating repeatedly that the president will hand over power to the South West geo-political zone, Mustapha and Ngige on the other hand says the Nigerian leader will look the way of the South East on completion of his second term in office.
The promise POLITICS TIMES gathered is aimed at getting the two zones to vote en bloc for Buhari who is the presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress, (APC).
It is also aimed at shattering the votes the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Atiku Abubakar, will gain from the areas having picked his running mate from the South East and promised the South West the restructuring the zone has been clamouring for.
“The 2019 general elections is our own. We are not looking at the 2019 but 2023,” Osinbajo said.
“If we get it in 2019, Yoruba will get it in 2023. Because if we don’t get it in 2019, we may not get it in 2023 and it may take a very long time to get it,” the number two citizen said on Saturday at the palace of Lamidi Adeyemi 111, the Alaafin of Oyo.
For Mustapha, the shortest route to producing a president of Igbo extraction is by supporting and voting for APC in 2019.
The Igbo are citizens of the South East and the region has not produced a president since the return to civilian rule in 1999.
While the South West gave their full support to Buhari in 2015, the South East went for the PDP, a repeat of that is likely to happen again given the fact that tribalism goes a long way in Nigerian politics.
“This man (Buhari) has only one term (four years) to do and go home, and an Igboman will replace him. But if you leave this shortest route and take a gamble, you are on your own,” Ngige said while addressing news men in Obosi, Idemili North Local Government Area of Anambra State.
“If Igbo refuse to play their cards right in next year’s general elections, the South-West will take away the chance from them.
“They will produce the next president after Buhari, because the zone has shown demonstrable commitment to Buhari’s cause.
“My good friend Babatunde Fashola has blown the whistle. What he said should be a warning signal to the Igbo, because you can’t stop the South-West from producing the next president of the country after supporting Buhari and the APC government.
“That is why I’m telling our people now to come out en masse in next year’s election and vote for Buhari, so that nothing will stop you from succeeding him in 2023,” the minister added.
He further described the vice-presidential slot given to the Igbo by the PDP as a “mere spare tyre that might be used for over six years”.
POLITICS TIMES predicts that given the support the APC and the president have enjoyed from the South West since 2013 when the ruling party was formed, the South East will likely not clinch the 2023 presidential ticket of party even if the people of the zone vote for en-masse for the Buhari in 2019.
Already, Bola Tinubu, national leader of the APC, is said to be warming up to take over from the president.
Since it was made known by Bukola Saraki, Senate President, the former Lagos State governor has not denied the allegation.
