*says he is supporting Obi in spirit of fairness.
By; BAYO AKAMO, Ibadan
The Afenifere leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo has disclosed that he does not hate the All Progressives Congress (APC), Presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu by not supporting his 2023 Presidential ambition.
Chief Adebanjo said this in Ibadan while speaking at the campaign of the Labour Party Presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi on Wednesday at the Lekan Salami sports complex.
The Afenifere leader said that he is supporting Mr Obi in the spirit of fairness, saying, it should be the turn of the Southeast to produce the next president in line with the agreement of reached by past Nigerian leaders in 1954 that each geopolitical zone should produce president, while they operate as a regional governments.
Chief Adebanjo pointed out that before Asiwaju Tinubu became the governor of Lagos State, he supported him on several occasions during his two-term administration as the governor of the state
“When he was the governor of Lagos State, I supported him; I did not hate him then, why will I have the course to now hate him.
Tinubu cannot confront me on this, but only people that are benefiting from him that are speaking ills of me,” he said
The Afenifere leader maintained that both North, Southwest and South- South have produced presidents for the country, while only the Southeast has not been given the opportunity to produce a President of Nigeria
Speaking, the Labour Party
Presidential candidate, Mr.Peter Obi, said he is committed to ensuring a secured and united Nigeria, just as well as create wealth for Nigerians if elected president in 2023, stressing that unity and security were needed to address problems presently confronting Nigeria, including moving the country from consumption to production.
Highlighting the challenges facing the country as unemployment, drug abuse and others, Mr Obi said added the challenges could be addressed by prioritizing the production, adding, ” we must secure and unite the country. When you secure the country, you are able to bring famers to return to the farm. That alone will start addressing food inflation.”
“By moving the country from consumption to production you are moving people away from poverty. The more you pull people out of poverty, the more you address criminality.Nigeria now has 13.8 per cent drug prevalence against the global average of 5 per cent. To deal with that crisis is production. We need to feed ourselves.”
Emphasizing that Nigeria was not sort of ideas to bring solution to anything, but what was lacking was institutional framework and political will to implement the ideas the Labour Party Presidential candidate said Nigeria could achieve whatever it wanted with true implementation of its great ideas, while urging Nigerians to look at the antecedents of the eighteen presidential candidates on the ballot before casting their votes in 2023.
