Guardian Nigeria08/11/2022
In a rare case of critiism of his opponents who have been mud slinging him and casting every imaginable aspersions at him and his follwers, popularly nomenclature by the media and who have enthusiatically adopted the brand of The Obedients, the Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi has described the political structure of All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party ((PDP) as ‘stomach infrastructure’ that has brought more hardship for millions of Nigerians in the last two decades.
Obi said this during an address at the Labour Party Coalition for Peter Obi (CPO) Summit at the International Conference Centre, Abuja, on Thursday. Obviously this ia an apt reaction to the fact that these parties have continued insisting that they have structure while Peter Obis Labour Party does not have structures. Whatever that means.
“Their understanding of structure is sharing of Nigeria’s patrimony to vested interests and influence peddlers. That is against what Peter Obi represents; that is against what Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed represents; and it is indeed, against the vision of the Labour Party.”
He urged his supporters to remind the opposition that Nigeria’s democracy must survive after being dehumanised and disenfranchised by the ruling oligarchs.
Obi said his structure is the 100 million poor Nigerians who will come out on election day to fight for their future.
“It is the 33% unemployed Nigerians who already know who kept them unemployed; our structure is indeed the parents of 18.5m out-of-school-children in Nigeria, who will strive to ensure that such affliction does not visit them a second time,” Obi said.
“Our structure is everyone seated in this hall today! Yes, we have Structure. And we are ready to move mountains to save Nigeria.”
According to him, since I entered the presidential race my mantra has been consistent and in tandem with the Labour Party’s vision, which mainly seeks to ensure economic transformation through job-led growth.
“Therefore, my decision to join the Labour Party was not by coincidence or happenstance; it was indeed a thought-through decision given the ideological convergence.
“Great nations are built through political alliances. Our founding fathers understood and forged alliances in the national interest. But things changed. Our leaders became selfish, myopic and corrupt. And our people suffered. That narrative and mindset must change.
“The new alliance we seek is between Nigerian Youths, the Labour Party, which represent Nigerian workers, and Like Minds. Collectively, it is an alliance of the OBIdients!
“Nigeria is at crossroads and it would be foolhardy for anyone to sugarcoat our current morass. Ravaging insecurity, largely inflicted by non-state actors, is fast threatening the sovereignty of Nigeria.
“Nigeria is today vastly polarized and wracked by deep divisions along religious, ethnic and regional lines.
“There is a staggering level of corruption. Our universities have remained closed for over five months. While our healthcare system remains comatose, power generation and distribution are also at all-time low.
“I have consistently maintained that while there is a need for the sustenance of the hard approach to fighting insecurity, there is urgent need to tackle poverty and those social and economic malaise that exacerbate the crises.
“We cannot have 33% unemployment rate, 18.5 million out of school children and 100 million poor people, in Nigeria and expect to go to sleep with our two eyes closed.”
