*** No more Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba but Nigerian
By Harry Awurumibe, Editor Abuja Bureau
The Labour Party presidential campaign train stopped in Nigeria’s commercial capital and former seat of the Federal Government, Lagos on Saturday with a tumultuous crowd attending the rally held at the Tafawa Bslewa Square (TBS), Lagos Island.
This is even as the LP Presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi is restating his promise to create a new Nigeria where there will be no more reference of “I am Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba but a Nigerian”.
“We will secure Nigeria. We will ensure that when we start, no Nigerian will say, I’m from the West, East or North, but will be proud to say, I’m a Nigerian. We want Nigerians to celebrate their Nigerianness, celebrate their passports,” Obi promised.
The former Anambra state Governor also appealed to Nigerians to give him the chance of building a nation which every citizen would proud of by electing him as the next President of Nigeria on February 25.
Besides, the parlous economic and social condition that had been their lot in the past years that made the country no long attractive to stay in, would be eradicated, Obi told a cheering crowd of excited supporters at the Tafawa Balewa Square in Lagos, on Saturday at the grand finale of his presidential campaign which has taken him to all state of the federation.
Blaming the past leadership of Nigeria, for plunging the country into a parlous situation where Nigerians were leaving in droves for menial jobs in other parts of the world, he particularly carpetted th government of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for its management of the economy, which he blamed for the recent rise in the phenomenon.
“Millions of Nigerians have fallen below the poverty line since the party first commenced governance in 2015. All the government has given us is poverty, joblessness, university lecturers’ strikes, and “one form of suffering or the other.
“All these will stop as we intend to move the country through agriculture from consumption to production. Lagos will remain the centre of excellence and finance. Nigeria has all the endowment to be a great country.
“Under an Obi-Datti administration, there will be an enabling environment for business and our gas will be developed to give more money than oil. Our government will support the youth for enterprise. Our achievement will be measurable.
Speaking of a free society where citizens would be free of intimidation, brutality and other forms of oppression from government officials and institutions, he promised specifically that his government would apologise for all the bad behaviours of previous governments in this regard including police brutality and state killings.
Hear him: “When you vote for us, I assure you that there will be freedom of press so the press can criticise what we are doing. Our security people would no longer be for harassment. Police will not harass anybody.
“We are going to recruit. We are going to train them on how to do policing and equip them. Police will be a friend, not enemy. They are going to do the work of policing. We will not have all these problems that we have.
“We will apologise to all those who are victims of police brutality. All those who had suffered in the hands of the government, we will apologise to them. We will make sure it never happens again.”
