Buhari: Tying Igbo presidency to his support for 2019 seen as hate speech
More discordant voices have continued to trail the recent comments made by President Muhammadu Buhari during a “mega rally” by his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), South-East Zone in Owerri, the Imo State capital.
President Buhari, represented by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr. Boss Mustapha, had made a comment suggesting that an Igboman becoming the president of Nigeria is technically tied to his successful reelection in 2019 presidential election.
Buhari said “The 2019 election is not about political parties; it is about the Igbo nation. You need a paradigm shift; it will determine the future of this country”.
A number of political analysts that reviewed the comments made on behalf of Buhari in Owerri, saw traces of hate speech against the Ibo nation and called for an apology from the presidency.
Some pundits argued that there has never been any election in Nigeria where electing a president is tied to the possibility of people of another nationality contesting for the position.
Already, the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described APC’s Tuesday’s South-East zonal rally as a mockery on Buhari by the members of his party.
National Publicity Secretary of the party, Kola Ologbondiyan, said Nigerians had a comic relief as speaker after speaker made a mockery of the President by ascribing non-existent projects as well as those initiated by others, particularly, the PDP, to him in furtherance of APC’s alleged renewed attempt to beguile Nigerians ahead of 2019 general elections.
PDP alleged that “Even the rented crowd showed and expressed a vote of no confidence in the ill-performed President and his party, as they refused to brandish the now famished APC brooms or respond to the party’s slogan, a development that signposts the rejection of the APC in the zone and of course, in other parts of our nation”.
The rally served as the first major outing by the new national chairman of APC, Adams Oshiomhole, who told the gathering that four years was not enough for Buhari to deliver on all his campaign promises.
