Okechukwu to PDP: President Buhari not interested in 3rd term

By Tom Okpe, Abuja

Director General, Voice of Nigeria (VON), Osita Okechukwu, has told the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to drop the thought that President Muhammadu Buhari is interested in third term agenda.

Reacting to the claim by the opposition party, the chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) named the PDP as the biggest beneficiary of the President Buhari’s continuity trademark.

Speaking with journalists in Abuja on Sunday, the VON DG, warned the opposition party to perish such insinuations, urging them to put aside propaganda and join hands to move the country forward.

“In sum, the re-energise statement by my great party the APC is genuine; PDP should be rest assured that unlike former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo of PDP fold, attempted and broached third term agenda, President Buhari has no such obnoxious plan.

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“One is totally miffed to hear the PDP, a principal beneficiary of President Buhari’s regime continuity trademark, dismissing off-hand the continuity he promised on his return from medical check up in London.

“One cannot, like PDP dismiss the hunger and poverty, banditry, killings, kidnapping, and Boko Haram insurgency in the land; however one cannot either dismiss the fine points of President Buhari’s regime, which takes over in 2023 must as a matter of urgent necessity continue.

“Banditry, herdsmen/farmers clashes, kidnapping and insurgency will sooner than later not only abate but also vanish,” Okechukwu assured.

He further noted that among the fine points of continuity the President bequeathed the PDP as a principal beneficiary is the over 1,000 Board appointments which tenure were not concluded, arguing that; “In 1999, PDP sacked all Board members and made humongous appointments of their members.

“On this issue, opinion was divided, some of us canvased that Mr President should dissolve all the Boards to make room for APC members and supporters and Buhari said emphatic no. These PDP Board appointees were not only beneficiaries, but more or less adulterated our transparency manifesto.

“In 1999, PDP revoked nearly all Petroleum Trust Fund ongoing contracts and made a bazaar of the exercise. One of the casualties was Enugu Urban Water Scheme; which was callously awarded to Chinese instead of Strabag of Germany which designed the project. It failed and today scarcity of water in Enugu is the outcome.

“The Buhari’s Agrarian Revolution #BUGREV where he has invested heavily to make Nigerians produce what we eat has, therefore demonstrated that every square meter of land in Nigeria is fertile for one crop or the other.

“Like or hate President Buhari, no rational and patriotic Nigerian will dismiss the ideas that #BUGREV, a program aimed at rural Agro-Industrialization will not continue.

“Luckily, the beneficiaries are across the board, multi-partisan and non-partisan inclusive. One stands to be contradicted,” he stated.