Peter Obi, presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP), has promised to revive dead and ailing industries in Nigeria toward turning around the economy.
Obi made the promise in Aba on Thursday at the launch of the state governorship electioneering campaign for the 2023 general election.
“When I came today, I went by air to see Aba and I saw that all the factories in Aba and many businesses have closed down.
“The same thing is happening across Nigeria because of poor governance. If you go to Kano, Kaduna, Onitsha, Lagos the factories have closed down.
“Labour Party will change all that and Nigeria will never be the same again,” he said.
He said his party’s commitment was to secure Nigeria and unite its citizens.
He urged the people of Aba and Abia to vote for LP to ensure a new lease of life.
In his speech, the Abia LP governorship candidate, Dr Alex Oti said that 2023 was Abia peoples’ only chance to save the state from an evil cabal.
Oti said a vote for LP would mean giving Abia people and their children a better future and warned against old wines in new wine skins and leadership of godsons.
He said the LP message of freedom, hope and renewal would continue until victory was assured after the 2023 election.
“About 31 per cent of the close to 5 million people in Abia, are in abject poverty, not knowing where their next meal will come from, about 51 per cent of our labour force are not employed.
“Not paying salaries have become routine in Abia. Pensions are not paid and the same applies to gratuities, some up to 45 months,” he said.
He promised to convert the state’s security votes to empowerment investment fund that would expand businesses and raise the state’s GDP from 3.5 to 7 per cent.
Speaking at his presidential campaign rally in Makurdi on Wednesday, Mr. Obi had promised to build a new Nigeria devoid of mass poverty and criminalities, if elected in the 2023 general election.
He pledged to ensure that youths were gainfully engaged by empowering them with skills.
He promised to invest heavily in education and to ensure that unemployment became history in Nigeria.
Obi also pledged to address the security challenges bedeviling the country, especially Benue, to ensure quick return of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) back to their ancestral homes.
“We will secure and bring peace to Benue so that those at the IDP camps will go back to their homes and farms and we will support them in production.
“Benue will be supported to become an exporting state considering that it is an agriculturally rich state,” Obi said.
He promised that Rivers Benue and Niger would be dredged to enhance water transportation in Nigeria, promising also to end crude oil theft in the country for the benefit of all Nigerians.
“With Obi and Datti, a new Nigeria is possible, and I dare to say that Nigerians can hold me responsible if we do not turn Nigeria around for good,” he said
Also speaking, the state LP governorship candidate, Mr. Heman Hembe promised regular payment of workers’ salaries in the state.
The state LP Chairman, Mr. Ibrahim Idoko, said Obi has demonstrated competence and capacity to lead the country, assuring that voting him as president would turn Nigeria from a consumer to a producer nation.
