From Obinna Odogwu, Awka

Labour Party (LP) has said good and effective measures have been put in place to ensure there won’t be voter apathy in the South East during this month’s presidential and National Assembly elections.

It said positive steps were being taken to ensure every eligible voter participated in the electoral processes on the election day.

Head, Intervention Team of the Obi/Datti Presidential Campaign Council of the party, Ifedi Okwenna, stated this in Awka, Anambra State, during a meeting with members of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Anambra State Council, led by its Chairman, Odogwu Odogwu.

Okwenna said the party had been encouraging eligible electorate who registered with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to collect their permanent voter cards (PVCs) so that they would be able to cast their votes on the election day.

 “We, at the LP, are making necessary efforts to achieve good results at the polls. This is because, it will be wrong for other Nigerians to be lending their support to Peter Obi while the South East will be found wanting, by not voting for the LP presidential candidate.

“We are traversing all the nooks and crannies; we have suspended sleep; we have suspended rest to achieve this, and we are not relenting. In the next three weeks, presidential election will hold, and Nigerians will elect a president after their heart.

“Nigerians need a president with capacity, character, compassion, and who has the willpower to turn things around for the better, and the answer is in Obi. Obi is one person among his contemporaries that can help Nigerians take back their country, and move it forward.”

Okwenna lamented that since the inception of the current democratic dispensation in 1999, the South East region has not yet produced the president of the country.

“By May 2023, the North where Atiku Abubakar, Peoples Democratic Party presidential candidate, and Rabi’u Kwankwaso, New Nigeria Peoples Party presidential candidate, are coming from shall have produced a president for about 10 years under the late president Musa Yar’Adua and President Muhammadu Buhari, as well as vice president for six years under Namadi Sambo.  South West where Bola Tinubu, presidential candidate of All Progressives Congress, comes from, has produced a president and vice for 16 years in the last 20 years; under former president Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. The South South has equally produced president for six years, and a vice president for two years within the same period, under Goodluck Jonathan. The South East remains the only zone yet to produce president for this country in the present democratic dispensation and, of course, since the end of the civil war in 1970,” he said.

NUJ Chairman, Odogwu, assured Okwenna and his team that their message of hope would be made to reach the residents of the region to ensure there was no voter apathy on election day.