The presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi, has described Nigeria as a country that was mercilessly ran down through cumulative effects of bad governance.
He said salvaging the country could only be done through collective effort of Nigerians.
Obi spoke Friday to Airport Correspondents at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos.
Mr. Obi while answering questions from the reporters said he had just returned from the United States, where he had gone for a two-day critical meetings all geared towards seeking solutions to the several problems facing the country.
Describing the major problem facing the country as economically induced, Obi said that however advanced a country is, once the economy failed to the point of engendering massive unemployment, hopelessness, and hunger caused by uncontrollable food inflation as Nigeria is presently witnessing, such a country would doubtlessly witness massive crimes and criminalities.
“This is what we are suffering today in Nigeria”, Obi said, while assuring that his government, if elected, would reverse the trend through cocktail of measures, including reducing the cost of governance, improving production and reducing endemic corruption.
On his readiness to restore the country to its former glory, Obi said he was perhaps the most prepared of all the candidates because of his deep and sustained interest in the progress of the country as well as his experiences 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.
Obi also took the opportunity to condemn the killing of the Labour Party’s Woman Leader in Kaduna, Mrs. Victoria Chimex saying: “Though I had already done so, but 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.”
