The Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, on Friday in Abuja thrilled the students and staff members of the University of Abuja with his facts and figures of where Nigeria is and where it should be if he is voted in as President on February 25, 2023.
Obi, who was a special guest in a TownHall engagement organized by the University’s Leadership Center, said that all the problems of the country, whether on economy, education, health, and politics, among others, revolve round political leadership that had failed the country over the years.
The LP presidential standard bearer, who spoke for over two hours while standing, said leadership failures over the years and refusing to do the right thing at the right time were responsible for the barrage of woes in our system.
He told the cheering students that the reason his manifesto was centered on turning the country from consumption to production was to stop the country from recycling poverty.
“The only thing this country is manufacturing is poverty. And Datti and I are coming to change all that because no country grows on consumption, without production.”
He said that poverty was increasing in Nigeria because :we are not investing enough in education and health which are what make the difference between a rich and a poor country.”
Assuring the students that all that would stop on his watch, Obi noted that “life expectancy globally should be about 72 years but it’s 55 years in Nigeria “because of the growing level of poverty in Nigeria, (whereas) country that is so blessed.
“This country should not be poor given its abundance natural and human resources.”
The Presidential frontrunner remarked that he and Datti were coming to halt the drift and position the country as a giant of Africa that “we all profess.”
The former Anambra state governor said that securing the country remained their number one priority because nothing, no matter how laudable, could be achieved without a secure environment, pointing out that his presidency would negotiate with agitators who were amenable and deal with those who might be recalcitrant and uncooperative because there could only be one government at a time in a country.
He also spoke on a number of issues arising from the questions from the staff members and students at the well-attended Town Hall meeting, ranging from power, corruption and subsidy removal.
On the allegation made by one of the candidates that fuel scarcity and redesigning of the naira were deliberately created to sabotage the forthcoming election, Obi said that he “runs his campaigns on issues and does not delve in candidate’s position” but noted that “since they are inside, they may know what others do not know.”
On removal of subsidy, he said that if given the opportunity, he would remove subsidy the first day in office because they had turned it into a huge racket of corruption which he and Datti would stop.
Obi told the jubilant students that the next election was about them and they must take the opportunity to grab their country from those mismanaging it by insisting that character, competence and antecedents guide their decision, not religion, tribe and region or my turn because in truth it’s the turn of the teeming Nigerian youths who are wasting.
Earlier in the well-attended Town Hall meeting, the Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof. Abdul-Rasheed Na’Allah, explained the motive of the gathering, saying that intellectual engagement was the basis of political leadership.
The Vice Chancellor said that those aspiring to govern us must be scrutinized, made to answer questions and wondered why Nigeria was where she was if not for poor political leadership which is everything.
