Buhari will get 6 million votes from S/East – Senator

Imo State lawmaker, Senator Hope Uzodinma, says President Buhari will get at least six million votes from the eight million registered voters in the South-East region at the 2019 presidential election.

Senator Uzodinma, the Coordinator, South-East Caucus, National Committee of Buhari Support Group, disclosed this at the inaugural meeting of the caucus in Abuja on Thursday, July 12, 2018.

“Every booth in South-east belongs to some people. They have leaders and if the message is given to them in a manner that they will understand, I am sure that we will succeed,” Uzodinma said.

“There is no point claiming headship; the common denominator is what would make President Buhari, out of the eight million registered voters in the South-east, to get a minimum of six million votes.

“In doing that, we have to make sacrifices and call some people to order. We will do our beat.

“For me as a person, we will try to convince and those that will willingly follow will follow,’’ he added.

Uzodinma maintained that the South-East caucus would not rest on its oars in ensuring that the goal became a reality in view of what the region stood to gain if the target was achieved.

He stated that an overwhelming vote that would return Buhari as President in 2019 will guarantee the South-East an opportunity to produce the President in 2023.

He maintained that it was an opportunity the region has for several years clamoured for and should not be allowed to slip through its fingers.

“The national leadership has approved the operation of this caucus and we are going to go for it, bearing in mind that if we succeed we will smile very well in 2023.

“We are going to tag our operation, ‘Operation 2023’, meaning that by the time Mr President wins convincingly in the South-East, the name of the business will be ‘Reciprocity’.

“This means, I have done for you, you are now to do for me,” he said.

Mr Uzodinma assured that plans were already in place to map out strategies that would enable the caucus to deliver on the mandate.

He added that the group would come up with a programme that would take the All Progressives Congress (APC) politics to various units in 2019 while reaching out to “booth owners’’.

Mr Uzodinma hinted that plans were underway to organise a mega rally in the region, adding that the president had approved of it and promised to be present.

He stressed that management structures would be set up at the state, local government and ward as well as booth levels, for better delivery.

“Before some of us came into the party I was told you do not use money to do politics; now we are going to use money to do politics.

“We are going to do that knowing very well that the tradition and culture of our people requires that.

“We cannot begin to learn a new culture when election is a few days away. So we will start from the known to the unknown.

We are going to work with the President and by the grace of God he will win in 2019.

“However, we have to establish criteria for knowing who a leader is when we get home.

“A leader is a man who wins his booth. A man who doesn’t win his booth is a pensioner. So, we will identify the right type of people that will in the frontline, give us victory,’’ he said.

The coordinator assured of his commitment to serving, not only to coordinate affairs but ensuring that the tools and logistics needed to make work easy would be provided.

He urged members of the caucus to designate functions appropriately, saying that it would be counter-productive to assign duty to people who would not deliver on mandate.