2019: Reject Buhari now, he’ll hand over to Tinubu – Group tells Igbos

A socio-political organization, Ndigbo Unity Assembly, NUA, has called on Igbos to reject President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019 for his alleged plans to handover to a national leader of the All Progressives Congress, Bolaji Ahmed Tinubu in 2023.

The organization made the call yesterday after their expanded emergency meeting in Onitsha, Anambra State.

This was in reaction to the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki’s claim that Buhari struck agreement with Tinubu to hand over power to him (Tinubu) in 2023.

NUA said it had become glaringly clear that the party and its leadership don’t have the interest of the Igbo people at heart.

President General of the organization, Dede Uzor, pointed out that Saraki’s revelation which had not been denied by either President Buhari or Tinubu had confirmed the fears of majority of Ndigbo that APC and its leadership had no good agenda for Ndigbo right from its inception.

The meeting was attended by the state chairmen from the five South East states, including Delta, Rivers, Cross River and Bayelsa states.

They said Saraki’s revelation had exposed the party’s “deceit and treachery against the people of Nigeria and Ndigbo in particular.”

“We are shocked by this revelation which we can describe as a vaulting ambition that lacks merit. It shows ethnic irredentisim found in most politicians in the APC and a self-centredeness of its leader.

“We must also say that APC has no interest of Ndigbo and Nigerians at heart and we must reject them in 2019 general elections. There is no statesman or patriotic leaders in the party.

“We have said it repeatedly that a lot of people who talk about one Nigeria do not actually believe in it. If President Buhari and Senator Tinubu actually believe in one united, indivisible and indissoluble Nigeria, they will not be imagining returning power to the South West so soon after Chief Olusegun Obasanjo finished an eighth-year tenure.

“We therefore call on Ndigbo to be extra vigilant, go and obtain their PVCs and join forces with other progressive Nigerians to vote out APC in February 2018 presidential election,” the group said.

The organization further called on Ndigbo to “reject APC, and all its politics of unfulfilled promises.

“The era of disunity and individualism should stop. Ohanaeze Ndigbo should organise all Igbo submit to fashion out Igbo political position or agenda,the era of using Ndigbo as a second fiddle should be over for good.”