According to Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi, Nigerians should be prepared to remove both the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from power in the general elections of 2023 because both parties have failed to fulfil their electoral promises.
At the weekend, during a segment on News Central TV, Obi made the remark.
Speaking about the country’s lack of electricity, Obi said it is shameful that despite holding office for a combined 24 years, the APC and PDP were unable to increase Nigeria’s power generation from 4,000 to 5,000 MW.
“The simple thing for Nigerians to ask themselves is, we have been in this business for 24 years, are we on the right road? If you have been in a situation for 24 years, people have been promising and not delivering,” he said.
“Look at the two parties, have they delivered what they promised? In 24 years, Nigeria could not increase its power generation from 4,000 to 5,000 or 6,000. Ask yourself the question, are we going to continue with this? So, are you going to continue on the wrong road or turn and say ‘listen, we have to do the right thing’”.
Obi said his track record as Anambra state governor for eight years eminently qualifies him to lead Nigeria out of her present situation which the two parties have plunged it into due to bad governance.
“Every section of Nigeria wants to have uninterrupted electricity, don’t they? Every part of Nigeria wants to see good roads. Every part of Nigeria wants to see the prices of food come down. Is there anywhere you buy bread cheaper? If you do the right thing, people will follow you.
“The level of divisiveness is because you have not come to bring people together. I will engage everybody constructively. I will sit down and discuss with every group. We will dialogue with them; we will bring everybody together in love. There are so many things you can solve by dialoguing and through discussion.
” I will tour every state of Nigeria. In Anambra, I did a tour of every local government once every three months and I slept in every local government.
“If you know Anambra state very well, you will know how chaotic and disorganised it was before I got there. For eight years, people were wondering, what is happening here? If the leader is determined, he can do a lot.
“People say Anambra state is not Nigeria. How do you measure unhired people? You take their track records. I wasn’t a banker. I have never worked in a bank but I’ve chaired a bank. I was just a trader in the market and a MD of a bank said to me ‘Peter, everytime I come to market, what you say is sensible. Can you come and be our Director? After being director for two years, everybody in the Board said this man should be our chairman. And I took the smallest bank in Nigeria to become a N25bn bank,” he said.