Mr. Osita Okechukwu, the Director General of Voice of Nigeria and chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC), has urged Ndigbo to vote for President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019, to prepare the ground for a Nigerian President of Igbo extraction in 2023.
Okechukwu spoke against the backdrop of the statement credited to Babatunde Fashola, Minister of Power, Works and Housing, who said “South West vote for Buhari in 2019 would return power to South West in 2023.”
In spite of the disaffection Fashola’s statement created in the South-East, which has been eyeing the 2023 presidency, Okechukwu said the statement by the Minister was not out of place, but a wake-up call for Ndigbo to vote for Buhari in 2019 if they were interested in 2023 presidency.
The VON DG reacted in a statement he made available to journalists in Enugu on Friday.
“The truism is that Fashola has sounded a wakeup call for Ndigbo to vote for Buhari if we are interested in president of Nigeria of Igbo extraction come 2023. Ndigbo has three advantages to clinch the 2023 presidency, equity, natural justice and good conscience.
“The zoning convention favours Ndigbo for our two brothers in the southern belt, South West and South South had benefited for eight and six years respectively. South East is the only geopolitical zone that had not benefited from the zoning convention since 1999,” Okechukwu stated.
He, therefore, appealed to Ndigbo to rethink and strategise to harvest the zoning convention, by voting for Buhari, adding that “political contest is earned, but not dashed.”
