The visit of Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) to Southern Borno, last week, seemed to have started paying dividends with no fewer than 2,000 members of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), calling it quits to pitch their tent with the LP.
Obi, was the only one among the four major presidential candidates that braved the odds to take his campaigns to the part of the state, where Boko Haram activities in the North East State, have caused a lot of havoc in human carnage in the last decades, plus the terrorists have operated.
The new entrants, including members of the the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP), were said to have joined the LP on Wednesday at the Biu Local Government Area, where they were said to have denounced their parties to embrace the LP and Obidient Movement the political platform of the forme Governor of Anambra State.
The defectors were said to have come from as far as Askira-Uba, Gwoza, Chibok, Damboa, Hawul, Kwaya and Shani, communities in Southern Borno, to team up with the Obi campaign,
At a town hall meeting tagged Biu Summit organised by Comrade Isaac Balami, a Labour Party chieftain and National Deputy Campaign Manager, Obi/Datti Campaign Council, the defectors, who were said to have shown a lot of passion, reportedly indicated interest to be integrated into the mainstream of the party as executives.
Balami, joined by thousands of party supporters to welcome the defectors and other party members to the council area, urged them to go all out to ensure victory for Peter Ob.
Some of the defectors told reporters that they were fed up with the governments of PDP and APC, and were willing to try another party that would affect their lives and those of their children, adding that the only incentives they could gather from their massive support for the two political parties in the past, were cubes of Maggi and salt.
The even came on the same day Obi promised that his administration would not only restore the missing leadership in Nigeria, but enthrone respect for the rule of law, if voted into power.
At a town hall meeting, organised by the Imo chapter of the party on Thursday in Owerri, the former governor who commended the organisers for their painstaking efforts at mobilising Nigerians to key into the programmes of the party, reaffirmed his commitment to a new Nigeria that would work for and accommodate everyone, irrespective of tribe, religion or other inclinations.
He assured Nigerians that electing him as president would help to unite the country and bring an end to poverty, sufferings and insecurity, adding that his emergence would open the way for the country’s economic emancipation, by moving the country from consumption to production.
He said: “My government will work closely with state governments to build uncommon synergy, with the aim of an all-inclusive governance for the overall good of all the citizens. Nigeria is blessed, we have all it takes to be a great country.
“All we need is the right leadership that will harness our potential as a country, such as the oil and gas in Imo, for our collective benefit. I will ensure respect for rule of law, secure and unite Nigeria and move the country from consumption to production. Vote for Labour Party, vote for human beings: papa, mama, pikin.”
Informing that his government would support a legislation to guarantee a certain percentage of women and youths in governance, as a way of pursuing affirmative action in line with global best practices, he said, he would achieve by strengthening the not-too-young-to-run and other relevant extant laws.
