Nigeria is an IDP camp – Obi

Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate Peter Obi has described the country as an Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp.

The candidate who stated that the living condition of one citizen affects the whole country, spoke Monday in Abuja at the unveiling of the party’s new Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), Director General, Balogun Akin Osuntokun.

Osuntokun, former Political Adviser to President Olusegun Obasanjo, was appointed the new DG of the Obi-Datti campaign organisation, following the resignation of Dr Doyin Okupe who has been embroiled in a money laundering case.

Speaking at the event, the former Anambra State Governor said: “I have been travelling to various states, people in difficulties, visiting the IDPs. Like I would always say, if Nigerians are in the IDP camps, if they are made to leave their homes and stay in IDP camps, then Nigeria itself is an IDP camp, because, those are Nigerians that should be among us. The purpose of government is to care for the citizens and the first line of the care of citizens are the less privileged. My commitment is that every Nigerian wakes up and feels proud to be a Nigerian.”

Speaking further, he said: “Nigerians want opportunities to work. Nigerian youths are energetic, they are productive and can compete with youths globally but as long as Nigerians are suffering, every Nigerian is suffering. You can’t be a rich man in a poor environment. It is not de-marketing the country. As long as there is insecurity in the North East and South East, there is insecurity in Nigeria. The highest number of unemployed people and out-of-school children are in the north. So, Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school children and unemployed. It doesn’t matter where they reside in the country and the job of the government is to provide. I would never de-market Nigeria.

While announcing the new DG, the Party’s National President, Barr Julius Abure said the party regretted Okupe’s resignation but assured that Osuntokun had been based on his vast knowledge and competence to drive the party to victory.

“The resignation of the former DG, Doyin Okupe, was regretted because we will be losing his wealth of experience, but as a result of the circumstances surrounding his resignation, we didn’t have any choice but to accept the resignation as we said the Obidient movement is centred around integrity, humility and transparency and therefore, in as much as we regret his resignation we are pleased to announce one of our comrades, also from the same geopolitical zone because we must appreciate the fact that we must employ federal character as enshrined in the constitution and all of that and so, having put all of these into consideration, and having consulted widely, we have come to the inevitable conclusion to replace the DG with Akin Osuntokun.

We believe that he has the capacity, he has competence to join us in this campaign and be able to drive it to success.

Abure bemoaned attacks on party members saying, ”The party no doubt has been going through several challenges. There is no gainsaying the party has been under serious attacks at various levels, our vehicles are being pulled down, we are being denied venues to do our rallies and all of that. We also have situations where some of our party members have been killed in Kaduna we lost our women leader and two other people, we have lost two house of Assembly members in Imo state. We also lost the National vice chairman.”

According to the party chairman, Osuntokun until now, was the party’s Zonal Coordinator (South). He is a Nigerian political scientist, strategist, researcher, administrator, journalist and writer, with experience in media advocacy, policy research and implementation and political analysis. A former Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria, Osuntokun served as Political Adviser to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, and as Director of the presidential campaign of the People’s Democratic Party ()PDP in 2011.