By Ayo Kehinde with Agency reports
President Muhammadu Buhari
Many youths in Kano jubilated as the news broke of President Muhammadu Buhari’s intention to run for second term come 2019. The news which was broken by the President’s personal assistant on new media engagement, Bashir Ahmad was fanned through twitter by Governor Nasri el-Rufai of Kaduna State, Special Media Assistant Garba Shehu.
Buhari reportedly made the declaration on Monday morning at the ongoing National Executive Committee meeting of the ruling All Progressives Congress.
The President has asked party members to grant waiver to the party’s National Chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, and other members of the National Working Committee who want to seek re-election.
NEC meeting, which is presently holding, with the attendance of Vice -President Yemi Osinbajo, Senate President Bukola Saraki, Speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara and 24 state governors, has been directed by Buhari to grant waiver to the party’s National Chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun and other officials of the party’s National Working Committee who want to seek re-election.
Kano youths said they were happy to learn that the President declared his interest in the 2019 Presidential race at the APC headquarters in Abuja on Monday.
Some of the youths expressed optimism that President Buhari would be able to complete the development projects that he has started by the time he completed his eight-year tenure in 2023.
Usman Baba told NAN that the past three years of the Buhari administration has been spent restoring security in the country and fighting corruption.
“We are happy and hoping that President Buhari should return to embark on infrastructural development since he has already retrieved a lot from looters. ”
” We don’t want someone to come and embezzle the retrieved loot or divert it to some looters again. That is why we want him to serve another term. ” Baba said.
Abduljalal Mu’azu, also expressed optimism that if Buhari wins a second term, the country’s situation might improve.
A female respondent Malama Maryam Musa, also said that the world had accepted the President as trustworthy and transparent.
Kano is pivotal to President Buhari’s second term bid as the state gave him the highest number of votes in the 2015 election, just like in the elections of 2003, 2007 and 2011.
Out of the 2,172,447 votes cast in Kano in 2015, Buhari won 1,903,999 votes, leaving the rest of the field to scramble for the fewer than 250,000 left. With additional report from NAN
