Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has said that he will pray and fast to God that President Muhammadu Buhari agrees to contest in 2019.
Though the election is still more than two years from now, and Buhari is yet to make any official pronouncement on his plan, Oyegun in an interview with New Telegraph, said the party’s leadership will do everything possible to ensure that the president contests the 2019 presidential election. The party chairman said his decision to support Buhari for a second term is based on two factors.
One, he said the president is the only politician in Nigeria today that has the capacity to win 12 million votes without major campaign.
Two, Buhari, he said, is the only man who has the courage to make the changes that Nigeria need. According to him: “There is no another Buhari in this country. Buhari is the only man who can command 12 million votes even without any major campaign. So, you can see the picture.
Yes, there will be changes, the party will get new members or lose a few members, but there is no Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). So, there is no strong party any more to say you are going to join and strengthen it. It is only APC that is really a strong party.” Oyegun added that he would commit Buhari’s second term ambition to prayers, saying: “I will pray, fast to God that Buhari agrees to contest in 2019. If he contests, Nigeria will be better for it. “My prayer is that we can get Buhari to re-contest in 2019.
We don’t know his mind yet, but I will do anything in my power to ensure that he re-contests in 2019. Why? He is the only one who has the moral front and the courage to make the changes that Nigeria needs.
“We need more than four years to get this country to subscribe to a new morality, a new ethic and turn its back on corruption of the very type we are trying to uproot now.” When asked if he is convinced that the APC would win the election given the disenchantment over the party at the moment, Odigie-Oyegun said: “Of course, APC will win.”
In a related development, a member of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the APC Hajia Fatima Mohammed has predicted that there will be commotion if President Buhari does not contest for the seat again in 2019. Mohammed said the president has done quite well so far and should therefore go for another term in office to complete his enormous work.