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Says President lacks energy, competence to remain in power
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From Uchenna Inya, Abakaliki
The presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Obi, on Thursday alleged that President Bola Tinubu had stayed over 260 days out of the country but could not spend 36 days going round the states of the federation to campaign for next year’s general election.
President Tinubu had said that he might not campaign in all 36 states of the country for next year’s general election because governance also required his attention.
But Obi, who declared himself the leading presidential candidate for the 2027 election, said the President did not have the energy and competence to run the country and should therefore pack out of Aso Rock, go home and rest.
He stated this in Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital, during a political summit.
“I want President Tinubu to come to Abakaliki to tell the people what he has done in the past three years. I want him to come to Abakaliki to tell you what he used the money he has been borrowing to do for the past three years.
“I want him to come to Abakaliki to tell Nigerians what he has used their money to do. He said he will not come for campaign.
“President Tinubu has stayed over 260 days out of Nigeria yet, he cannot spend up to 36 days to go round Nigeria to tell the people what he has been doing for the past three years. We will not do that.
“President Tinubu does not have the competence to run Nigeria. He does not have the energy to run Nigeria. He should pack his things, go home and rest,” he said.
Obi warned against dividing the South East and declared that he was seeking the votes of the electorate as a Nigerian who was eminently qualified for the presidency.
“Let nobody divide the South East. I don’t want the people of Ebonyi to vote for me because I am from the South East. I don’t want you to vote for me because I am an Igbo person.
“My dear people, I want you to vote for me because I am qualified to be the President of this country. I want you to vote for me because I am the leading candidate,” he said.
The former Anambra State governor said he would declare an emergency on hunger, insecurity, education, corruption, health, power and other challenges confronting the nation, and threatened to jail anyone who embezzled public funds if he emerged as President.
“We will declare emergency on about seven items. Number one is that we must unite Nigeria. We don’t want people to be around Nigeria saying, I am Igbo, I am Yoruba, I am Hausa, I am this, I am that.
“We must unite this country, our pride should not be consideration of employment, this or that. We will operate federal character for all the jobs we have. So, we must unite the country.
“We will declare emergency in the security of lives and property in Nigeria. We will deal with insecurity decisively. Nobody will be in charge, we will be in charge.
“Let me assure today, if I am President of this country, kids come to school and somebody takes them into the bush, we will be in the bush with such person. They will not be there alone, we will be there with those kids. We will defend the country because we are going to equip the security agencies to make sure that our country is safe.
“We will declare emergency in corruption. I will fight corruption like nobody has fought it before. Public money must be used for public good, nobody will steal our money again. If you do it, you will go to jail starting from the President.
“We will declare emergency in education. We have over 18 million children out of school, we must reduce it. We will declare emergency on hunger. We have vast lands, our farmers must go back to farm, be able to cultivate, give us what we eat and be able to export. We will do that.
“We will declare emergency in health. We must have a functional healthcare in all the political ward of Nigeria. Every ward must have it, we have the resources to do it,” Obi stated.
