2019: A Look At President Buhari’s Foot Soldiers In The South-East

In view of the determination of the All Progressives Congress, (APC) to
shore up the popularity of its presidential candidate, President
Muhammadu Buhari in the South-East ahead of the 2019 elections, BIYI
ADEGOROYE and KENNETH OFOMA, look at the foot soldiers enrolled for this
mission

By BIYI ADEGOROYE and KENNETH OFOMA

One
of the fallouts of the 2015 elections where the All Progressives
Congress (APC) secured about five per cent of its 15,424,921 votes from
the South-East which produced President Muhammadu Buhari is the party’s
renewed efforts to make great inroads into the region in the subsequent
elections.

With the glaring popularity of President Buhari in the
South-West, which has over 14,626,800 registered voters, is his
determination to make huge statement in the South-East in the 2019
elections, targeting more of the region’s over 8,293,093 registered
voters.
Top on his plans for action in this direction are programmes,
projects and appointments allegedly tilted towards the zone designed to
redress the alienation of the region originally touted to produce the
Secretary to the Government of the Federation at the inception of this
administration at inception.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo’s
closed doors meeting with all APC governorship candidates from the
South-East is a pointer to the determination of the party to increase
its forage into the region and shore up its popularity in the next
elections.
Following the bedlam over the maginalisation of the region
in the areas of appointments and infrastructure, the Buhari
administration said it has about 69 ongoing projects in the region
alone. The various road rehabilitation and construction projects which
cut across the states, including the Enugu-Port Harcourt Road, linking
them to the South-South are valued at over N100billion.

Besides
the aforesaid, however, is that political observers say the President
has upped the ante by identifying some South-Eastern leaders who are
already serving as his foot soldiers ahead of the elections. They have
specific assignments- to market the party, win more seats for it and
deliver the region to the President in the 2019 elections.

Rochas Okorocha

Though
he is at logger-heads with the party over its failure to give his
son-inlaw, Uche Nwosu the governorship ticket, Chairman, APC Governors’
Forum Imo State governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, who is the is by all
standards, Buhari’s numero uno foot soldier in the South-East.

The
second term governor who is at daggers drawn with his party’s
candidate, Senator Hope Uzodinma will stop at nothing to install Nwosu
succeeds him in the state, but not Uzodinma. His dual loyalty to the
Action Alliance (AA) and the APC will however, make him to moblise
support for the president.

Okorocaha said that having realised
that region’s voting powers lie on the youths and women, “we want to
make them vital instruments for the pursuit of this expected victory for
President Buhari come 2019. And why the Igbos should and would support
the person of Muhammadu Buhari and understand what the name Buhari
actually means because there has been a lot of misrepresentations and
misunderstanding of the person of Buhari.

“The political jobbers
have tended to give him all types of interpretations but the truth
remains that President Buhari is a good man, a leader and a man who
stands by the truth and is not a man who believes in the primitive
accumulation of wealth.
He said that in the election of 2015, Igbo
never gave him the support he deserved and were the least in the six
geo-political zones in the support for Buhari. So, we want to correct
that story and change the narratives that Igbo do not hate Buhari but
actually love him. Igbo this time around will support President Buhari.

“A
victory for PMB is a victory for ndi Igbo and we shall not be found
wanting in the political equation of Nigeria anytime, any day. Our bad
politics in 2015 left a very big gap yet to be filled and we must fill
it. To do so, the youths and women must take up their responsibilities
if this journey must be completed,” he noted.

Ken Nnamani

Former
President of the Senate, Senator Ken Nnamani is another Buhari’s foot
soldier in South-East. He has been appointed Vice Chairman, South,
Presidential Campaign Council, 2019.
The former senator elected on
the platform of the PDP and became the number three man in the country
in 2007 is among those who defected to APC shortly after the 2015
elections.

President Buhari last October met behind closed doors
with the former Senate President at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, where
he along with some Igbo leaders pledged their support to the president,
especially in exchange for his support for the emergence of a president
of Igbo extraction in 2023.
Senator Nnamani has since then been
working behind the scene to bring aggrieved members who were disgruntle
during the last APC primaries back to the party fold and increase
Buhari’s support base in the 2019 elections.

Ogbonnaya Onu

The
Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, is another
prominent member of the group. A former governor of old Abia State and
one time chairman of the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP), is a very
expe

rienced politician with track record of integrity, which has earned him huge popularity in Abia State and beyond.
The
pioneer Head, Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of
Port Harcourt and Acting Dean, Faculty of Engineering in 1985 became the
first Governor of old Abia State in 1991. Though early touted the SFG
designate, he remained unruffled when the post went to the North-East,
and has consistently exhibited total support for Buhari.

Chris Ngige

Former
Anambra State governor and current Minister of Labour and Employment,
Dr. Chris Ngige, comes tops of the list. Though his state is under the
firm hold of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), whose governor
is allegedly working for the President, Ngige remains another avowed
supporter of the number one citizen.
Ngige, who accused Igbo people
of suffering from self-inflicted marginalisation even when they have
opportunity to redeem their predicament said only Buhari’s presidency in
2019 can guarantee Igbo presidency in 2023, adding that the president
is the only one that would relinquish power after the next four years

Orji Uzor Kalu

Former
Governor of Abia State and the party’s senatorial candidate for Abia
South in 2019 election, Dr. Oji Uzor Kalu is another top ranking foot
soldier of Buhari in the South-East. Having defected to the APC about
two years ago, he has organised rallies for the party, and indeed the
president, seeing the party as a plausible platform where the interests
of the Igbo would be better actualized.

Kalu, at an APC meeting
held at Camp Neya in his Igbere country home, insisted that President
Buhari does not hate people of the South-East, but rather a friend of
the region who has been doing what former Presidents failed to do in the
region for 16 years.
“President Buhari is doing a lot of work which
PDP didn’t do in their 16 years of ruling this country. The second Niger
Bridge is being constructed by him, this shows that he is competent to
rule this country.

“I don’t know why people will say that Buhari
hates the Igbos because I know Buhari very well. He is a friend to
Ndigbo. Am I not a friend to President Buhari? I am very close to Buhari
and I know that come 2019 election, Abia State will give President
Buhari 75 percent of their votes.
“Our South-East governors promised
to build the second Niger Bridge but they didn’t do it. Obasanjo
promised and failed. Goodluck Jonathan promised to do it but he did not
care to build the bridge for Ndigbo.”

Sullivan Chime

For
eight years, Mr. Sullivan Chime was Enugu State governor. Earlier, he
had served as special adviser, and later Commissioner for Justice on the
platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). So Chime has garnered
years of experience in the politics of the state, which he is bringing
to the fore to work for the success of Buhari in the state and the
region.

What magic does he intend to perform for President Buhari
in the 2019 general election in the state? “There is no magic. It is a
question of convincing our people letting our people know the difference
between the people lying to them and the people telling them the
truth.”
Chime even alluded to a statement recently made by Governor
Dave Umahi, a PDP governor of Ebonyi State, who stated that the
South-East felt much better under Buhari than PDP. “Is he not PDP? You
must tell yourself the truth. What did PDP do for you? Let us forget
this talk, talk; what did PDP do for you? We should be asking you what
the APC has done for us. APC just came in…we are talking Federal
Government here not state government. What did PDP do for you?

Sen Ayogu Eze

The
governorship candidate of APC in Enugu State, Senator Ayogu Eze, who
unveiled his campaign manifesto titled “A New Dawn” is of the firm
belief that the APC will soar very high in the state and indeed the
South-East in the 2019 elections.
Hence, he has thrown in his hat
with the readiness to go the full hug, such that during the visit of
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to inaugurate Ayogu’s campaign office, that
he urged Osinbajo to ignore the governors promising him 30 per cent of
South-East votes. Eze said that the governors were deceiving the
President, boasting, however, that APC has enough manpower in the zone
to deliver 90 per cent of South-East votes to President Buhari even
without the governors’ inputs.

Izunaso¸ Moghalu, Enukwu

APC
National Executive members from South- East are also on the fray. They
include the National Vice Chairman of the party in the region, Emma
Enukwu; National Auditor, Chief George Moghalu, National Organising
Secretary, Hon Emma Ibediro and the former National Organising
Secretary, Senator Osita Izunaso, who once represented the Imo West
(Orlu) constituency in the Senate on the platform of the PDP from May
29, 2007 to 2011.

Achilles’ heels

It is being said that
much as the governorship candidates of APC in Imo, Abia, Ebonyi and
Enugu states, are expected to be the arrow heads of the party’s campaign
in their various states as harbinger of their own victories, it is
noteworthy that the main huddle APC will face aside from hostile
electorate, are the intra-party crises across the states arising from
the party’s primaries.

From Imo to Enugu, to Abia and Ebonyi, the
governorship and other candidates of the party are being challenged in
court by aggrieved contestants. This has created deep fractures in the
unity and cohesiveness of the party that in a hostile environment.
An
observer said many people in the zone see APC and its presidential
candidate as anti-Igbo, as a result of the “Operation Python Dance”
military operation that saw the killing of many young men from the zone
especially pro-Biafra agitators, which culminated in the declaration of
Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) as terrorist organisation.

Even
the apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, had queried
the rationale for designating IPOB a terrorist group when killer
herdsmen that have killed thousands of Nigerians are yet to be so
designated.

Similarly, the issue of alleged lopsided appointments
by the Buhari administration where the people of South-East and to some
extent, South-South regions of the country have severally complained of
being marginalized, especially in security architecture of the country
would remain an albatross for APC in the zone. The recent rejection of
the confirmation of nominees to Economic and Financial Crimes Commission
(EFCC) is still fresh in the minds of the people, as nobody from the
two regions made the list.

Above all, observers said that APC is
hardly present in the South-East and has since sidelined the area.”It is
going to be very difficult, especially with these lies the party is
telling. Our people are living in the South-East. The roads are still in
bad condition. Look at the Enugu-Port Harcourt Roads and the rest. Life
is hard and the economy there is poor. Stating that they will take over
the place for Buhari is like self-masturbation,” said Chief Uwazurike,
former President of Aki Ikenga.

In his words: “APC supposed to be
wooing us, not grandstanding. Look, as it is today, not one of the Igbo
people is among the security chiefs in the country. Look at the
headship of the Army, The Navy, Immigration, Prisons and Customs. There
is no one Igboman there. Are you saying no Igboman is found worthy of
that position both in learning and character?
“They just constituted
the boards of ICPC, EFCC and the rest and there is no Igbo man, so what
is the basis for such argument? They should woo us with projects and
clear evidence like infrastructure and not boast.”
Also, though the
Igbo socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze has not endorsed any party, there
are indications that it will more likely to go for PDP which favours its
position on restructuring.

Source:- Newtelegraphng