February 05, (THEWILL) – The Leader of the Pan-Yoruba Socio-Cultural group, Afenifere, Pa. Ayo Adebanjo, has urged the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, to join forces with Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), and stop deceiving himself thinking the northerners will vote for him in the forthcoming election.
Adebajo, who spoke at LP’s presidential rally in Ake, Abeokuta, at the weekend, asked Tinubu to have a rethink and withdraw his candidature to support Obi, insisting that the north won’t vote for him despite supporting President Muhammadu Buhari, to become president in 2015.
“We are behind Obi. Leaders of the progressive movement are behind Peter Obi. Those fraudsters parading themselves as Yoruba do not love the country. Yorubas do not take things that belong to other tribes. A Yoruba has been President before.
“Atiku (Abubakar) is taking you for a fool, a Fulani man is about to leave. Please tell Tinubu that Hausas will not vote for him, tell him to come back and support Obi and Datti because they will defeat him and when they defeat him, he won’t be able to come back home,” Adebanjo said.
Addressing the Alake and Paramount ruler of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Gbadebo, and supporters at his palace, Obi said that Nigeria is a failed state and only he and his running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, are committed to a new Nigeria, to change the fortune of the country for better if elected
The LP’s presidential candidate emphasised the bad state of the economy and insecurity bedevilling the nation and the poverty that has ravaged the country, especially in the north, lamenting that over 120 million Nigerians are living in multi-dimensional poverty.
Obi, who attributed the challenges facing Nigeria to bad leadership, disunity, unemployment, youth indulgence in drugs, and out-of-school children, said that he would take the country from being a consuming state to a production economy country.
He said, “We are here in Abeokuta today, for our state rally and we deemed it necessary that we have to come here and pay our respect and loyalty to you, His Majesty. And our party, Labour Party (LP), is committed to a new Nigeria. Datti and myself have been going around Nigeria, preaching to everybody about this new Nigeria.
“Insecurity is number one: nobody dares go out and be sure that he will return safely. Number two is the economy: within the past 20 years, all Nigeria has achieved is doubling the number of poor people in the country.
“The National Bureau of Statistics said we have 120 million people living in multi-dimensional poverty. That is higher than India with a total of 1.4 billion total population. Today, Nigeria has a higher number of people living in poverty than India and China combined.
“As of today, we have over 20 million children out of school; youth unemployment is over 50 percent. Youth drugs prevalent at over 14 percent. What is the cause of all these? Leadership failure over the years. They have failed to recognise and pursue a goal along the lines that are expected.
“So, myself and Datti are committed to reversing the trend and that is why we say a new Nigeria is possible. We have been to places where other presidential candidates cannot dare go and campaign because we have determined that our first priority is to secure and unite this country.
“We must reunite the country because as of today, the country is so much divided. Our number two priority is to ensure that this country is served with the rules of law. Our number three priority is to remove Nigeria from a consumption to a production economy,” he added.
