The Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi, touched down in his home state of Anambra on Tuesday with an unprecedented crowd of men and women, young and the elderly including the royal fathers and clerics on hand to receive their beloved son who was a success as a governor of the state from 2006 to 2014.
Addressing a jubilant crowd of supporters in the commercial city of Onitsha, Obi said if elected president he would not be complaining about the past but will go into action to tackle the problems on ground, which he pointed out, is multi-faceted because of the long standing failure of leadership in the country.
“When I came into government in Anambra State, I started from where Governor Chris Ngige stopped because I believe that government is a continuity. I never complained of what my predecessor did. My government did not complain. The work of a leader is not to complain, it is to find solution. We are telling you we are not going to complain. We are not going to remind you of your past, we are going to remind you of your future, and we are going to give you a great future”.
He promised to restore the lost glory of Onitsha as a trading centre in Africa, noting that Anambra is a manufacturing state.
“That era will come back again. When I was a governor, I brought so much industries. I built industrial estate, I supported INNOSON motors amongst others. When I become president, I will do it in Kaduna, Kano, Lagos, Kogi and all over the nation.
“We will return Borno as a fishing centre. Every part of Nigeria will turn to productive centre. Nigeria will produce food and we will not be hungry again, because we have farmland in the north. We will cultivate all those farmland in the north. I will build factories in the east and the ports in Port Harcout and Warri will be put to use again. I will open up a road from Anambra to Abuja that will make the trip in just three hours”.
Obi promised that if elected he would elevate INNOSON motors and other local car companies to export their products. And young Nigerians who have fled the country will return because the situation will improve and we will be better than where they are in other countries.
He noted that today one dollar is 750 Naira, but “I have told them to allow us into power so that it can start reversing. We will ensure that we export enough to stabilise the naira.”
On the issue of insecurity in the country, especially in the south east, the LP candidate said he will find a lasting solution to it.
“We will make sure that we negotiate, discuss, beg, cajole people. We will beg everyone but if they refuse to hear, we will tell them that we are in government. But there will be peace.”
Obi said that if he is given the opportunity to serve Nigeria as president he will be celebrated all over the country because of what he will do to unlock the potentials of all parts of the country.
“If I am president, the north will celebrate me because I will fight poverty in the north. I will fight out of school in the north. If I am the president, the south- south will celebrate me because I will use whatever is remaining in the oil resources to clean the zone and bring life to south-south. If I am president the south-west will celebrate me because I am going to turn Lagos into the financial hub of Africa. If I am president, the south-east will celebrate me because I will turn the zone into business centre in Africa.”
The Labour Party Vice Presidential Candidate Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmad, who also addressed the rally, said the country is ready for power to come to the south-east and wondered if there’s anybody from the region who is not ready for it.
“Nigeria is ready for south-east, the north is ready for you and let me see anybody from south- east who doesn’t want power to come to your zone”.
Explaining why the power rotation rightly belongs to the south-east, Datti said, “In 2019, Peter Obi and his likes, all serious politicians from the south, even with their money, resources and experience decided not to contest the presidential election because they reasoned it was the turn of the north. Now in 2023, no one should drag it with the south-east”.
Also speaking in the same vain the National Chairman of the Labour Party, Comrade Julius Abure, reminded Anambra people that, “any opportunity that is lost can never come back. This opportunity that is in Nigeria today, Anambra people must not allow it to be lost.
“If Nigeria presidency is to be turn-by-turn, and If there is anyone who can say that it is his turn, it should be Peter Obi because every other zone has tasted power except the south-east”.
