PDP Presidential Ticket: Obi, Tambuwal Intensify Consultation

•Meet PDP NWC, BoT, Party’s National Assembly caucus

Chuks Okocha

Front line presidential aspirants in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr. Peter Obi and Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, yesterday intensified their consultations as they sought support of party members for the presidential ticket.

While Obi met the PDP National Working Committee (NWC), the Senate and House of Representatives caucuses as well as the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the party, where he informed them of his aspiration

On his part, Tambuwal met the Senate and House Representatives caucus as well as the BoT members to inform them of his aspiration.

According to Obi who spoke to newsmen after the meeting rejected the insinuation that he was fronting to be a running mate to Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.

He said, “You have to check my trajectory as a person, look at all the people that are contesting and view my background, you will probably see that I am the only person who has a very unique background.

“I am a business man, I have chaired corporations in this country including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and so many quoted companies and I have been a governor. It is for you to go and check all those places and see what I have been able to do and ask yourself who is the right person to take leadership of this country at this difficult time.”

According to him, “Our country is now going through a difficult time. I am not desperate to be president; I am desperate to see a better Nigeria.”

On the economy, he said, “We are now on the top of the list of the most fragile state. We are now on the top of the list of the most terrorised states sitting behind Yemen and Afghanistan.

“We are the poverty capital in the world. We now have more people living under poverty than most big nation’s combined. We now have several millions of out of school children.

“Unemployment is 33 per cent officially but when you add underemployment, it is about 55 per cent. Sixty per cent of these are the young ones who constitute the asset and the engine room of their productive age.

“People now spend 100 per cent of their salary to feed. It is a crises situation. What will somebody like me do,” he said.

On the way forward, the former governor of Anambra state said, “We need to move the country from consumption to production. There is nothing to share again, we now need wealth creators not wealth sharers. We have been sharing wealth for a long time, we need to start creating wealth.

“I am coming from that background, basically as a trader who has created wealth in private space and in government space. We now need to shut down out cost of governance and everything.

“So go and look at the trajectory of where people were coming from and check all the places I have been giving responsibility including being a governor. You saw what I did in Anambra state, you saw what I saved and all that.”

Commenting on security, Obi said, “We have what we call natural security and artificial security. The natural security deals with job-creation; you need to put food on people’s table to ensure that they are not doing the wrong thing. If they don’t know where the next meal will come from, the tendency is that they will become a tool for anything.

“So we need to employ people. I know what to do in putting money into micro, small and medium scale enterprises. I have experimented iron a small way which people can see. 

“Otherwise how could a small state like Anambra end up on the day I was ha doing over not owing salary, pension, no contractor who has executed his job, raised certificate or supplied us goods were being owed.

“I left N77 billion which is over $500 million at that time in the bank. I know what we can effectively do to turn around the situation,” he explained.

On what PDP could do to salvage the situation, he said,

“We are in a crises situation, what the party can do is to allow the best candidate to emerge. Our country is in a crises situation; we are now using over 90 per cent of our budget to service debt.

“First months of last year, we earned N1.875 trillion, we used N1.802 to service debt, that is 98 per cent of our revenue was thrown into servicing debt.

“Last year we said that from the budget of N13 trillion, we were supposed to borrow N4 trillion but what we generated was far below so we borrowed N6.5 trillion to N7 trillion.  

“This year we said that we are going to generate N20 trillion to borrow only N7 trillion, but I can assure you that we will borrow more than that so we have crises on our hands.”

Meanwhile, Tambuwal also spoke of his dream to bring forth a new Nigeria. However, as at press time, he was still meeting with the PDP BoT.