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