Chief Hilliard Eta, the National Vice Chairman, South -South, All Progressives Congress (APC), has expressed optimism that the region will massively vote for President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019 presidential election.
Eta, who spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Abuja, said APC stakeholders in the South-South would work tirelessly to ensure that Buhari emerged victorious.
He said that the president had creditably acquitted himself; hence he deserved a second term in office.
“Far away from a time when a ruling party will tell you that they are going to conquer; they are going to garrison a political context.
“We will rather work hard in persuading our people to first of all understand; then believe in the policies of President Buhari and then give the necessary support he needs in 2019 to continue the good work that he is doing.
“That is the work that has been cut out for us and we are not overwhelmed by that work; we need to direct our energies and time to that task.
“ God being with us, we will win the presidential election in the south-south.’’
On the conferment of national honour on Chief Moshood Abiola(MKO), the presumed winner of the 1993 Presidential Election, Eta said it was a defining moment in Nigerian political history.
Buhari had on Tuesday formally conferred late MKO Abiola with the Grand Commander of the Federal Republic (GCFR), the highest honour of the land
“ 25 years ago MKO won the presidential election and not only was he stopped from taking power, he died in the process; unfortunately he was not the only one who died because of the fight to actualise June 12. A lot of Nigerians also died.
“In resuscitating the mandate and validating it, President Buhari has defined Nigeria along the lines of the principles that attended June 12, 1993 presidential election.
“It was a moment when Nigerians predicated their choice of leaders very far away from our fault lines which constitute things like religion, ethnicity, creed and even sex.
“On that day, Nigerians announced their unity and oneness; people can speak of the abandonment of religious and tribal cleavages but there is one they miss- Abiola was the first democratically elected president of southern extraction,’’ Eta said.
He said that Buhari had resurrected the oneness and unity of Nigeria by honouring Abiola with GCFR.
Speaking on crisis facing the ruling party, Eta said that solution had been found by the `conscription’ of comrade Adams Oshiomole to come and take the reins of leadership as the national chairman of the party.
The APC chieftain said that the crisis in the party was self-inflicted as a result of weakened leadership at the top.
