Former Governor of Anambra state and presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi has said Nigerian youths want to see a country with a future, and that this is to take the country and give it to them.
Obi who disclosed this in an interview with Reuters said he can solve what ails Nigeria, including unprecedented insecurity, industrial-scale oil theft and allegations of widespread corruption that the APC government failed to solve in eight years.
“The system they’ve operated over the years has brought us to where we are,” Obi said.
Obi was Atiku’s running mate in 2019, but said he lost faith in the nomination process. He is now running with the Labour Party, one of 18 registered political parties.
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Dressed in a tailored-but-casual blue “senator style” suit and sandals, Obi said that voters in a nation “on the brink” would eschew religious, ethnic and tribal loyalties that typically help the major parties dominate elections.
“What is important is that people trust,” he said, adding: “It is simple. You may not like me. But what I’m coming here to do will be different.”
His gubernatorial tenure, he added, showed that he was unafraid of angering powerful interests to help the nation, and was more important to voters than his Christian faith or identity as an Igbo – an ethnic group where some members agitate for a breakaway nation.
“We will break all of it to make it work,” he said.
Obi said he is finalising specifics of his platform – such as how he would handle the tightly controlled naira currency or deal crippling fuel subsidies.
But he said he would renegotiate debt, extricate the government from the economy and enable the private sector to thrive.