National Coordinator, Amaechi Mandate Group, Mr Emeka Chukwu has described the Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi as the best replacement for President Muhammadu Buhari in next year’s general election, saying it is the minister’s destiny to run for presidency.
He also said his group had not embarked on proxy campaign, saying that Amaechi is interested in the presidency and that he will run for the office.
“Amaechi possesses all the needed qualities to aspire to lead this nation. So, we are not forcing him to run. It is his destiny to run for president. From our own background checks and interactions, Amaechi is the candidate to beat in this election,” said Chukwu on a breakfast show on Arise television monitored in Abuja yesterday.
He said the minister is the only potential aspirant in the All Progressives Congress, APC, who is accepted across all sections of the country.
“We all want to see him run to douse all the tension emanating the South East/South South and his candidacy is sellable to all the regions of this country. He is loved in the North, he is embraced in the South West, he is one of our own in the South East and he is the son of the South South. So, he has all the aggregate support from the zones. He has all the qualities and ours is to prod him,” he added.
When one of the presenters, Reuben Abati asked whether the group has the mandate of the minister to campaign on his behalf, Chukwu said: “We are not forcing him or running a proxy campaign on his behalf but we feel he will declare in due time to run for the presidency. We have reached out to him and met some of his aides and they bought into our project. Amaechi is interested. He is not being forced to run. He wants to run”.
Presenters of the morning show also hailed a former Governor of Anambra state, Mr Peter on his interest to run for the office of President, assuring that he would create jobs and pull Nigeria out of economic woes. They also commended Obi for his consistent loyalty to people, urging Nigerians to emulate him.
Speaking against the backdrop of Obi’s attendance of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s presidential declaration, Ojy Okpe said, “the fact that he (Obi) went for Atiku’s declaration and still spoke well of Atiku while declaring is very important before anyone starts to speculate that there is a rift between them. He is such a simple and nice man.”
Dr Reuben Abati on his part said; “Obi is trying to send a message across that politics has to do with loyalty first of all. He made the point that the former vice president is his boss, his senior. You would recall that in 2019 when many political figures in the East were opposed to Peter Obi being chosen as running mate on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP, then Candidate Atiku picked him as running mate. Yes, they didn’t win, but they had an impressive outing of over 10 million votes in that presidential. He went to the declaration venue to support his former boss and left there to make his own declaration. It doesn’t matter if they run separately, I hope people will take that message of loyalty”.
