2019 Elections: All Igbos will vote for Buhari – Orji Kalu

Kalu says Igbo will vote for Buhari in 2019.

A former Governor of Abia State and Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Orji Kalu has said the Igbos will turn out in mass to vote for President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019 in order not to disrupt the zoning formula.

Kalu, who said this while speaking in an interview on Saturday on Arise Television, added that it would be unwise for any Igbo man to challenge Buhari in 2019.

He said, “The unwritten power-sharing agreement known as zoning obliges the country’s major parties to alternate the presidency between northern and southern officeholders every eight years. It was consolidated during Nigeria’s first two democratic transfers of power — in 1999 and 2007.”

However, the zoning was abridged in 2011 when former President Goodluck Jonathan, from the South-south, contested and won the presidency.

According to him, Jonathan also contested the 2015 general election against the wish of political blocks in the country who felt the presidency ought to have been zoned to the North for eight years.

“After Buhari’s eight years, nobody in Nigeria can tell us that our region cannot produce the president. Majority of the Igbo people will massively support Buhari in 2019. They did not support him in 2015. But, in 2019, they will massively vote for him. I am passing a vote of confidence in him because he has integrity.

“I am not the only one passing a vote of confidence in Buhari, the APC governors just endorsed him for a second term, the World Bank is supporting what he is doing, so also is the European Union, including other powerful world leaders,” Kalu said.

Explaining why he joined APC, Kalu said, “I will add a lot of value to the APC in the South-east. Buhari’s illness slowed him down, no doubt, but he has done well so far. I have been in the opposition for 10 years now. I joined Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) in 2006.

“But, I joined APC because of Buhari. I joined because of his integrity, so as to help grow the party in the South-east. APC has come to stay in the South-east. Buhari contesting in 2019 is not only for himself but also, for the South-east.”