Etiebet backs Buhari for second term

Member of the National Caucus/Board of Trustees of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Don Etiebet, CON, has thrown his weight behind President Muhammadu Buhari to seek re-election in 2019.

In a statement he issued yesterday, the former National Chairman of the defunct All Nigeria Peoeple’s Party (ANPP) tipped President Buhari for an automatic ticket to run for a second term at the party’s national convention next year, adding that Nigerians would return the President for a second term.

He said: “I am exceedingly pleased to inform you that APC shall give President Mohammadu Buhari the sole automatic ticket to run for a second term at the Presidential Convention next year.

“And let me tell you also that Nigerians shall return him for the second term with far more votes than they did in 2015 and more votes for him than any presidential candidates in our national history.

“It will be the most singular act by Nigerians to say that we are more united and that national integration as a nation state is a reality built by this administration.”

He described another presidential ticket of the APC for Buhari in 2019 as natural, logical and cultural in a presidential system.

“An incumbent, most importantly and particularly a highly acclaimed performing President, is the pride bearer of his party’s touch. Yes, it’s a right of first refusal for him,” he said.

“It is therefore natural that he shall bear the APC banner in 2019 period. I can tell you that PMB will be given the honour and respect by his own party, the APC, by returning him unopposed at the convention.

“We are all grateful to God for restoring his health.

“Let me tell you the reasons that he merits a second term: his fulfillment of his campaign promises—insecurity, corruption and a rejuvenated economy.

“It is astonishing the achievements in these key areas in two years. It’s a feat for the administration considering where the country was and was descending to as at 2015.

“Boko Haram has been significantly degraded, peace in Niger Delta has been stabilising, Nigerians are now afraid to be corrupt, and an economy at the verge of collapse is not not only being brought back and stabilised but gaining growth momentum.

“So, being on this projectile for the next six years of this administration, we can all be assured that Nigeria will be the hub and centre piece of Africa’s democratic, economic and strategic renaissance.”

Chief Etiebet recalled that before Buhari’s ascension, corruption was a scourge afflicting the country so much that the country risked descending into a failed state with individual and tribal fiefdoms.

“In the past, every desk in the public sector was a government with people on the post appropriating to themselves whatever that comes to their table,” he said.

“So, if not for the policies of this government, TSA, fear of corruption and others, Nigeria was heading to a South Sudan and Zimbabwe situation.

“The successes recorded in the agricultural sector whereby very soon we will be self sufficient in rice production, among others, will sustain our agricultural aspirations in the medium and long term.

“In the solid mineral sector, the groundwork for growth has been laid such that its contribution will push our economic growth in the second term above 6 to 7 per cent growth.

“Our GDP is growing positively with strength and Nigeria’s economic outlook has never been rosier.

“With a growing GDP, a growing foreign reserves, dynamic economic activity and resurgence, incoming improved living wage, school feeding, poverty reduction programmes all over the country, a secured national security and prosperity, our party is blessed to happily at the next year’s national convention offer without reservations the automatic ticket of our party to our performing President and his Vice (deputy).

“We cannot loose this continuity and momentum. This is the position of everyone who love and care for our nation. This is the general opinion of majority of our party stakeholders at all levels.”

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