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| Obi and other guest on the occasion |
The Labour Party Presidential Candidate, Peter Obi, said on Tuesday that the urge to serve a people not getting enough of what they deserve is the main driving force on him to seek to be President of Nigeria.
Obi told 2022 Lagos Business School Alumni Conference in Lagos on Tuesday that the desire to be President “is borne out of a deep conviction that Nigerians deserve far better than they have been served by their leaders.
The country should work for every citizen but regrettably “Currently, Nigeria works for a small minority of people; Nigeria must work for ALL Nigerians. First and foremost, all Nigerians must be able to dwell securely and in safety wherever they live. This is the first duty of government, but sadly, it is one where there has been blatant failure.”
Obi whose paper is on ‘ Creating an Enabling Environment for Business in Nigeria’, said “To have hundreds of Nigerians killed or maimed by terrorists, and millions of people displaced as a result of the destruction of their villages and farmlands is unacceptable.
Also unacceptable according to the LP candidate is “To have Nigerians abducted by bandits and forced to spend weeks, months and even years in the bush with their abductors.
“To have almost 20 million of our children out of school and roaming the streets is utterly unacceptable. Nigerians’ lives matter. Nigerians lives must not be wasted,” he said.
The former Anambra state Governor, who is also an alumni of the Lagos Business School, stressed the effect of corruption in the business environment. “To have corruption eat so deeply into the fabric of our public life, such that over 80% of our common wealth is devoured by a small minority while most of our people are left to scrounge and scavenge for a living is totally unacceptable.”
He said that Nigeria cannot be a Banana republic because it’s citizens are too gifted, too smart for that to happen to them.
“With the staggering amount of natural and human resources that our country has been endowed with, we have no business at all being in this pitiable, sorry state - we occupy the lowest rungs of the ladder in practically every index of development.” The statistics, he emphasized, are appalling!
Obi said that Nigeria is in dire need of good leadership for direction, hence his desire to present himself to serve
He said, “Today, Nigeria is badly in need of a reformative leadership. Bad leadership has hurt us deeply and diminished our national potentials and dreams.”
He remarked that the desire to take back Nigeria is nearly unanimous. “We may be used to the old order; but we cannot vote for the continuity of corruption, recklessness, impunity and poverty. We can no longer gamble with our fate and future. I’m running for president, because I’m qualified: have the capacity, credibility, commitment, stamina and track record and Nigerians can trust me.”
On the way forward for the country if he gets the mandate to lead, Obi listed seven point strategy: Securing Nigeria, ending banditry and insurgency, and uniting our dear nation to manage our diversity such that no one is left behind: Production-centred growth for food security and export, that is, moving Nigeria from consumption to production; restructuring the polity through effective legal and institutional reforms to fight corruption and enthrone rule of law and all-inclusive and effective government; leapfrogging Nigeria from an oil-dependent economy to the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) with massive investment in new technologies; expanding physical infrastructure, with focus on critical sectors like power, multi-modal transportation, gas pipeline, etc… through efficient public-private partnership (PPP) reforms (unleashing growth-enabling entrepreneurship and market-creating innovations).
Others he said are youth engagement and human capital development that improves quality of life of workers and families, and productivity-enhancing education that empowers labour competitiveness and having a robust foreign policy that restores Nigeria’s strategic relevance.
Obi explained that the main vision and mission of Obi-Datti Presidency “is to give full expression to our democracy by moving our country from consumption to production. From transforming the economy to making it more productive; to creating employment and prosperity for millions of youths, reducing poverty in the land, addressing issues of criminality and insecurity, among others.
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