Obi: Salvaging Nigeria Requires Collective Efforts

The presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, has described Nigeria as a country that was needlessly run down through cumulative effects of bad governance, saying it could only be salvaged through collective efforts.

Obi spoke yesterday to airport correspondents at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos.

He said he just returned to Nigeria from the United States of America where he had gone for two-day critical meetings all geared towards seeking solutions to the many problems facing the country.

Describing the major problem facing the country as economics, Obi said that however advanced a country was, that once the economy failed  to the point of engendering massive unemployment, hopelessness, and hunger caused by uncontrollable food inflation as Nigeria was presently witnessing, that such a country would witness massive crimes and criminalities.

“This is what we are suffering today in Nigeria,” Obi said,  assuring that his government would reverse the trend through a cocktail of measures, including reducing the cost of governance, improving production and reducing endemic corruption.

On his preparedness to restore the country, Obi said he was perhaps the most prepared because of his deep and sustained  interest in the progress of the country as well as his experience in the management of men and resources.

“You may wish to verify from all the corporations and institutions I have managed, including Security and Exchange Commission and Anambra State,” he said.

Obi who described his trip as “worthwhile”, said he was encouraged by not just Nigerians but Africans who feel that after Nigerians would have successfully taken back their country in February, that it would encourage other African countries that are experiencing bad leadership to do the same without recourse to the destructiveness of war.

He also took the opportunity to condemn the killing of the Labour Party Woman Leader in Kaduna, Mrs. Victoria Chimex saying, “Though I had already done so, it is still okay to take this opportunity to do so again. I therefore call on Nigerians to join hands together with me to build a country where security will be top notch. Where Nigerians will love one another and the country above all.”