SIR: Nigeria deserves a political leadership that can rescue it from the morass of economic strangulation and the backwaters of technological backwardness. So it behoves us to cast our votes wisely in the 2023 presidential election.
Peter Gregory Obi, the Labour Party presidential candidate, is the man who the cap fits regarding the Nigerian presidential seat. A man renowned for his parsimonious nature, he expertly husbanded the economy of Anambra State, and grew it to an astonishingly great heights. As a result, the Anambra State’s finance was in a fine fettle. So, he was able to execute many infrastructural projects in the state. Not only did he construct new roads and repair bad ones, but he also re-built schools’ in Anambra State, which were in decrepit condition. He equipped mission hospitals in the state with modern medical equipment, and gave them facelift, too.
That he turned around the health and educational sectors in Anambra State is an indisputable fact. He injected money into the education sector, and handed schools that were originally owned by the church back to them for the efficient and proper management of the schools. So not surprisingly, during his stay in office as the governor, the state recorded excellent results in such examinations as NECO and SSCE, coming tops in those examinations for many years.
His leadership examples and achievements have become touchstones and benchmarks for assessing successive governors of Anambra State. The legacies of infrastructural development, revamping of the health and educational sectors, and the prudent management of the Anambra State financial resources, which he left behind in Anambra State, have endeared him to us.
Unlike some other past state governors and political actors, who have the sword of Damocles of allegation of financial misdemeanours hanging over their necks, Peter Obi is not standing trial for any financial misdemeanour.
Read Also: Peter Obi not running for president
His antecedents and doings have shown that he will unite the Peoples of Nigeria rather than divide them. He will bridge the chasm of disunity caused by our ethnic and religious differences by seeing every part of Nigeria as his constituency and ruling us with fairness.
Moreover, he is very well-acquainted with Nigeria’s multifarious problems like her security challenges, economic woes, and infrastructural deficit. He has, however, proffered solutions to them during his interactions with stakeholders in the Nigerian project at different fora, which is part of his electioneering.
He has both the mental and physical capacity to go the whole hog regarding offering us purposeful leadership that will transform Nigeria positively and leapfrog her to the class of developed countries.
We should learn from the peoples of Great Britain, who placed meritocracy above ethnic and religious factors when they elected Rishi Sunak, a non-white person as the Prime Minister of Great Britain. Rishi Sunak, who descended from Indian parentage, has proved that he possesses the mental and physical capacity to lead the charge for the economic recovery of Great Britain.
But back in Nigeria, some people are sniggering at the back of Peter Obi, owing to his ethnic origin (Igbo) and religious affiliation. They have labelled him an IPOB sympathiser and secessionist so as to besmirch his reputation and jeopardize his chances of winning the 2023 presidential election.
Yet, since 1999, when the fourth republic birthed in Nigeria, the Hausa/Fulani and Yoruba peoples, two legs of the three-legged tripod on which Nigeria stands, had taken turns to produce the president of Nigeria. And the Igbo ethnic group, which is one of the three major ethnic groups in Nigeria, has not. As a consequence, the Igbo people are left in the cold, politically.
•Chiedu Uche Okoye,
Uruowulu-Obosi, Anambra State.