ICHEOKU says how anybody will campaign for President Muhammad Buhari reelection in 2019, faced with all the things that have gone wrong in Nigeria under his watch, is simply beyond fathom. With which face would anyone stand and explain to Nigerians why the APC's 'hope and change' mantra, which they voted for in 2015, virtually turned sour; and have remained unfulfilled three years down the road, and literary turned APC into an All Promises Cancelled disaster. Like a bad product, selling or marketing President Muhammadu Buhari to Nigerians in 2019, will definitely be an uphill difficult, if not impossible, task to pull off.
President Muhammadu Buhari has unenviably earned the singular dishonor of being the most hated and loathed president Nigeria ever had; such that no right thinking Nigerian would willingly vote for him again to continue in office in 2019. He has not kept faith with the Nigerian people, whose goodwill he fretted away when he failed to honor his election promises to improve their lives. Like American Queen Crooked Hillary Clinton to the Democratic Party, President Muhammadu Buhari has become more of a liability to the All Progressive Congress than an asset. He lost it all and his hitherto electoral invincibility as a disciplined corruption-free military man has since also been eroded; particularly by his crass cronyism and the unfortunate political poison pill which he took when he distinguished and differentiated Nigerians into two groups, the 5% and the 97%. His lopsided appointments and complete exclusion of an entire one third of the country, Ndigbo, from key positions in his government will hurt him greatly. The president did not do enough either to improve his electoral fortunes in those areas that consider themselves victims of his nepotism and cronyism.
Boko Haram is still taking its toll on Nigerians. Corruption is still ravaging Nigeria. Power supply has not improved. Overall security has further been compounded by the addition of terrorists Fulani herdsmen who are causing immense havoc in the land, leaving a trail of sorrow, blood and tears in their wake. Unemployment is still rife. So what exactly are the underlying strengths of President Muhammadu Buhari which Nigerians would like to continue to see and enjoy; and which will persuade them to want to keep him around for much longer and which will make them to vote for him in 2019. These are some of the multi dimensional questions which anyone campaigning for Buhari-2019 will first have to convincingly answer to Nigerians, before they will accord him any serious second look. How can anyone convince Nigerians that a Buhari who could not deliver on the two main planks of his 2015 mandate, war on corruption and insecurity, will suddenly become who he is not and that anyone should take him serious with his promise to take Nigeria to another level come 2019. The general feeling in the land is that if he could not do it in his first term, there is no guarantee that he will do it with a second term mandate in 2019; and bridging this gap of distrust is a heavy duty task for Bola Tinubu and Rotimi Amaechi to pull off.
Therefore ICHEOKU is not envious of the current task which Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu is saddled with to reconcile the various factions within the moribund APC. As a correlation, by accepting to work for President Muhammadu Buhari's reelection campaign, Bola Tinubu has embarked on a mission impossible and only by special miracle will he mission accomplish this time around. ICHEOKU is emphatic that 2019 will not be a walk in the park like 2015 was and APC will need all the help they can get to retain their President Muhammadu Buhari in Aso Rock. President Muhammadu Buhari has lost all the goodwill which endeared him to the hearts of those Nigerians who swarmed around him in 2015 to elect him president. With no electoral rain check left for him to cash in 2019, only a feat of improbable proportion will see President Muhammadu Buhari through to a second term. What a tall order Bola Tinubu and co have in their task to help win President Muhammdu Buhari a second term and they definitely have their work cut out for them.
ICHEOKU says no one captured this dire strait in which APC found themselves with their President Muhammadu Buhari's disappointing or rather lack of performance during his first term more than Rotimi Amaechi, when he eloquently stated: “It was not easy electing Buhari the last time, but it will certainly be more difficult this time. Expectations were too high and we did not meet those expectation." ICHEOKU says completely agrees that Rotimi Amaechi summation was right on the money; and that baring any miracle of election, President Muhammadu Buhari will end up being just a one term president, who Nigerians regretted ever electing in the first place and wished they never did. But as with everything in life, never say never is always a good hedge and until the election comes and goes, no one should ever rule out anything including a possible President Muhammadu Buhari's reelection in 2019.
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Christy 'Apena' Essien-Igbokwe , the wife of Jegede Shokoya of the New Masquerade and Nigeria's lady of songs is dead; she was 51years old. Although her family claimed that "brief Illness" killed her like so many Nigerians; Icheoku retorts that it was most likely AKwa Ibom voodoo and remote control that was used to arrest her. It is on record that she had fallen out with the governor of her native Akwa Ibiom State and have been having a relentless war for political turf with the governor? So who knows whether she was sacrificed to Ekpe cult or even Alusi-Okija as an offal; afterall African science is still very much alive and portent. May her soul rest in peace.
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