Pressure on Buhari to replace Osinbanjo with a South Easterner

With the 2019 general elections looming, a House of Representatives member, Hon. Linus Okorie yesterday told President Muhammadu Buhari and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) to drop the current vice president Professor Yemi Osinbajo and pick a running mate that hails from the South East region to show his commitment to supporting the emergence of an Igbo president for the country in 2023.

This, according to Okorie, would prove President Buhari’s commitment to the Igbo agenda in 2023 and his support for the emergence of a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction come 2023.

Okorie, who is representing Ohaozara, Onicha and Ivo federal constituency in the House of Representatives was reacting to opposition of South-East Governors and the PDP leaders on the choice of former Anambra state governor, Mr. Peter Obi as running mate of former vice president of Atiku Abubakar for next year’s presidential election.

He, however, urged the governors and the PDP leaders who were aggrieved on the emergence of Obi to congratulate their son instead. He also asked them to thank Atiku for recognizing the zone by picking Obi as his running mate for the general election while advising the aggrieved South-East governors to avoid being sentimental over the choice of Obi and rally support for the PDP VP candidate.

This comes as Chief Chekwas Okorie, the National Chairman of the United Progressives Party (UPP), reminded Ndigbo that President Buhari and the ruling APC never promised to hand over power to the region in 2023. He claimed the offer peddled by South Eastern APC leaders was the ‘worst form of deceit’ and stressed that only idiots would fall for it.

The politician, who spoke to reporters, said that Buhari would rather pass the baton to his Vice President, Osinbajo who was loyal to him during their administration and also as a bid to reward the South West region.

Okorie said, “It’s a very unintelligent proposal by mostly Igbo politicians in APC because it’s not an APC agenda. Buhari or his close aides never alluded to anything like that; you always hear of it from Igbo people who do not know what they want from APC. They believe that the only way they can get Igbo votes is to make this kind of promise that is not based on logic or any political thinking. It is the worst form of deceit and it’s only the unwary, especially those on the lowest rung of intelligence quotient, that will buy into that kind of story.

“I say this very clearly because President Buhari has a Vice and they have been working very closely together from the observation of many Nigerians. This is a man that held forte when the president was away for over 100 days on sick leave. And if for any unfortunate reason Buhari comes back in 2019 (I put it that way because I’m one of those that don’t think he should come back) and decides to run with this same very loyal Vice President, what makes anybody think that after eight years in office, he will not reward him and his political zone, but them and go for the South-East?

“What is the attraction from the South East region that will make Buhari to go in that direction? And what has Buhari ever said or done that will give the people of the South East the impression that he loves them that much? As a matter of fact, he has used every opportunity to tell them that he doesn’t like them.