Director of Buhari/Osinbajo 2019 Next Level tells Ndigbo APC guarantees them 2023 presidency

DIRECTOR if the Buhari/Osinbajo 2019 Next Level support group retired Air Commodore Peter Gbujie has appealed to Nigeria's 35m Igbo's to re-elect President Muhammadu Buhari in February saying that is the only way they can produce a president in 2023.

In February, Nigeria goes to the polls in what is expected to be a head on contest between President Buhari and former vice president Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. Both candidates are northern Fulani's but under an informal agreement among Nigeria's ethnic groups, the next president will come from the south of the country and the Igbo-speaking southeast is considered the favourite to produce a candidate.

Nigeria's two other southern geo-political zones the southwest and south-south have both produced presidents in Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and Dr Goodluck Jonathan, so come 2023, the smart money will be on the southeast. Both the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), have said they will likely field Igbo presidential candidates next time around.

Commodore Gbujie, a former APC)governorship aspirant in Imo State, advised the electorate not be discouraged over a media report attributed to some people from the southwest, claiming that their zone would take presidential slot after President Buhari in 2019. He added that Buhari/Osinbajo 2019 Next Level a privately funded group,  would have at least 200 members in each polling booth in Imo and other southeastern states to prevent rigging in February.

“For me, such report is a mere political strategy to weaken the Buhari’s support in the southeast. If our people fail to give massive votes to the president’s re-election, it will be used against our people in 2023.

“Our people should be concerned with what is before them now and that is, give massive support to Buhari’s re-election bid because when we do that, it will enable us cross the 2023 political bridge with ease. The Buhari/Osinbajo Next Level 2019 is a support group funded by private Nigerians who believe in the ideals of Mr President and we are of the view that Buhari has made landmark, remarkable and key achievements that if consolidated, will place the country on solid footing in the next couple of years,” Commodore Gbujie added.

He said that members of the group would soon begin door-to-door campaigns to tell Nigerians things President Buhari had achieved in his first tenure and things he intends to achieve, if re-elected in 2019. Commodore Gbujie said President Buhari had done well in the fight against corruption and the war against insurgency in the northeast.