President Muhammadu Buhari’s childhood classmate and former senator, Abba Alli, has declared that the president should run for a second term in 2019 in order to fully sanitise the political system..

Alli made this comments in reaction to the calls by some politicians that the President should not contest in the 2019 general election, or that he should even resign as a result of ill-health.

In an interview with Punch, Ali maintained that the President was full of life when his childhood classmates of 1953 paid him a visit in his hometown, Daura, during the Sallah holidays.

He said;

“President Buhari is hale and hearty; let me first clear that impression on his health,”

“Those urging him to resign on health grounds have forgotten that God is the creator of mankind and he has the final say on when one will die.

“I have seen an old man in Katsina here who was in coma for four months, yet the old man thereafter lived for another eight years before he eventually died.

“I have also seen a situation where a man was seen today in good health and died the following day not as a result of accident but normal natural death.

“President Buhari should go for a second term in office. He has started a good job which is acknowledged both within the country and globally. And it is better he contests again for a second term in office so that he can finish the good job he has started.”

Alli maintained that there is scarcely any politician in the country today who compares to Buhari in terms of sincerity and love for the people.

He described the President as a man who is;

“not out to accumulate wealth but to put Nigeria in its appropriate place in the comity of nations”.

“Based on my experience in politics and with my age, I am saying it with all seriousness that I have not seen anybody among the current crop of politicians in the country who has a good intention like President Buhari,”

“Many of them have amassed enormous wealth meant to take care of their people. Many are still stealing blindly.

“President Buhari stands out among the current political class in Nigeria. I will rather encourage him to go for a second term so that there will be sanity in the political sphere.”