The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, has said that the viable ticket to grabbing the presidential slot in 2023 for the South East is for them to vote en-mass for the return of President Buhari for the second term in office.

Speaking on the heel of the recent revelation by the Senate president, Bukola Saraki that former Lagos Governor, Bola Tinubu move was to take over from president Buhari on completion of his second term in office.

Ngige who dismissed Saraki’s revelation a non-issue said that Tinubu has the right to aspire for any position he deems fit.

He added: “He is a human being. All of us have our ambitions. We are in politics to serve and if you feel you can serve in a very high office, you should aspire to go there.

“It is left for those who are politicking with you to also square up and do their own work. If they feel it’s their turn, they should do their own work so that they will be more acceptable than yourself. Power is not served, you must struggle for it.”

The minister while saying that on moral grounds and equity, it will be the turn of the South East to take up the mantle of leadership urged them to step out to say it is their turn with enough punch and convincing reasons.

He said: “Part of the reasons and the arguments will be that we are the only people that have not tasted it before and it will then touch people. But if you go into your bedrooms and stay and you are not in the party that makes the masquerade, I don’t know how you can come and say, put the masquerade on me.

“You must be there and that’s why we are saying, South Easterners must join our party in good numbers. South Easterners must vote for our party in numbers to make Buhari president for a second tenure.”

The minister, who spoke to journalists at the weekend, described politics as a game of numbers saying that one must look at the configuring of the electoral strength in Nigeria.

He observed that most of the electoral strength is concentrated in the North West that has seven states of Kano, Katsina, Jigawa, Sokoto, Kebbi, Kaduna and Zamfara.

“Their voting strength, if anything has moved again like it was in 2015, if you remember in 2015 election, Kano alone gave two million votes and Katsina gave nearly one million. So, all I’m trying to say now is that the configuration of the election patterns in 2015 has changed in terms of strength.

“So, in the South East, luckily, we have some voting strengths. We are in the neighbourhood of about eight to nine million votes within your kitchen and you deliver about 80 per cent of it to any presidential candidate, he will not forget.

“The South East has about twelve to thirteen million and the last time, they delivered 55 per cent of their votes to Buhari while Jonathan got about fifty or thereabouts. So, all I’m saying in effect is that you must do political engineering and the step to take forward is to support a Buhari presidency for 2019 and vote for it with all their strength.

“Because by so doing, number one, they will not be left in the power-sharing that will come thereafter like was done at this period.”

Ngige further said that if Igbo voted for Buhari in 2019, the zone would be assured of strategic positions in government even as he observed that they will also get into the kitchen cabinet of the presidency.