2019: You can’t sway Southeast with fake promises, PDP tells Buhari

•Pan-Igbo group endorses President

THE People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has told President Muhammadu Buhari that with the 2019 elections around the corner, he cannot sway the people of the Southeast with fake promises and false performance claims.

The party, in a statement yesterday, accused the President of attempting to lure the Southeast geo-political zone into supporting his second term.

It added that the people have resolved not to follow any leader who cannot deliver on his promises.

But contrary to PDP’s position, a pan-Igbo group, Igboezue Cultural Advancement Initiative, has declared its support for President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election in 2019.

The group said after wide consultations, it has resolved to collaborate with the United Progressive Party (UPP) to chart the political way forward for Ndigbo in Nigeria.

However, PDP spokesman Kola Ologbondiyan said President Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) have been jittery.

According to the main opposition party, the Southeast and other geo-political zones across board have expressed an overwhelming acceptance of the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, due to his “proven competence, respect for equity and all-inclusiveness in governance”.

The party said: “Instead of accepting his failure, which is manifest to all, President Buhari, who is reputed for not fulfilling campaign promises, is busy making a fresh list of fake promises to Nigerians.

“In this desperation, Mr. President fails to understand that the people of the Southeast, just like other Nigerians, are too sophisticated to fall for gimmicks, false promises and ethnic politics, and as such cannot be swayed from their resolve to rally with Atiku Abubakar to rescue our nation from the shackles of misrule.

“Nigerians have since seen through President Buhari’s bouquet of failures and fake promises, which in any case, cannot heal the wounds of marginalisation, nepotism, inequity, disregard for federal character principle and harsh economic policies, including obnoxious foreign exchange regulations and heavy taxations of his administration, which are killing businesses and plunging families into extreme poverty.”

But, the national leader of Igboezue, Chief Chekwas Okorie, said at a news conference yesterday that the group is in total support of UPP in adopting Buhari as its presidential candidate.

Okorie, who is also the UPP National Chairman: “Igboezue is in total agreement with UPP in its revolutionary agenda as encapsulated in the party’s manifesto and objective principles of its constitution concerning restructuring, self-determination of Nigerian ethnic nationalities, referendum, devolution of power, state police and community policing and unconditional release of prisoners of conscience etc.

“While holding these principles sacrosanct, we also align with UPP in its wise decision to endorse and adopt President Muhammadu Buhari as presidential candidate for the 2019 election.

“We will do everything within our power to ensure that Ndigbo do not put their political eggs in one basket either now or in the future. We shall work for the completion of President Buhari second term in office in order to pave the way for a patriotic Igbo man or woman to be elected president of Nigeria in 2023.”

Okorie said Igboezue strongly believed that four more years of Buhari’s government was by far better and “more bearable than the possible eight years of Atiku Abubakar’s administration, which will bring back to our people sad memories of 16 years of PDP emasculation of Ndigbo”.

He noted that the group was conscious of the truth that the PDP has not made any form of commitment to the restructuring of Nigeria or the much-desired Igbo presidency any time in the future.