From Emmanuel Adeyemi, Lokoja
An international consultant and Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the UK, Chief Momoh Y Obaro, has said the presidential candidate of the ruling party, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, must be able to convince Nigerians that if elected, the current level of poverty, insecurity and unemployment will be drastically tackled.
In a chat with newsmen in Lokoja, the Kogi State governorship hopeful and a grassroots mobiliser said although President Muhammadu Buhari has done so well to improve the wellbeing of Nigerians, he said much still needed to be done by whosoever will succeed him
The governorship hopeful who said APC’s chances of winning the presidential election is hanging in the balance said the factors that brought the party into power in 2015 may no longer be there in 2023 tasked the party to be more aggressive in door-door rather than engaging in a media war
In his words: “As can be seen from the data on Presidential votes in 2015 and 2019, we have support from four out of the six geopolitical zones: NW, NE, NC, and SW. We have performed woefully in the SE and SS.
“We should change the narrative in the SE now that Peter Obi from the geopolitical zone is running as the Labour Party’s presidential candidate and the SS, where the main opposition party – PDP, has their vice-presidential candidate, we should improve drastically our electoral fortunes in the region
“The NW and NE where we have enjoyed dominance now seem threatened also. The PDP presidential candidate is from the NE. SE and NE of the country have produced Presidents for the country only once since independence. PDP’s Presidential candidate is from the NE.
“Though there are positive signals in favour of APC in the NW from the NNPP presidential candidate, we nonetheless still face challenges in the NW as a result of the presence of Kwankwaso as a Presidential candidate of the NNPP and even as a result of Atiku’s candidacy.
“Voters in NW and NE supported APC so much because of the person of the President – Muhammadu Buhari. Tribe and religion were also other reasons people from these geopolitical zones overwhelmingly supported the president.
“But these considerations are no longer there and so we need to generate other considerations that would sway these voters and retain their support for us. More can be done in this regard especially to make the voters feel at home with our candidates
“The party must therefore find a way of making the voters trust the new candidates of the party enough to vote for them. One of the practical ways of doing this is for the party to provide a concrete plan to assure voters that their votes for the party would bring them a lot of good” he added.
While identifying three big issues currently confronting the nation as insecurity economy and corruption, the APC stalwart said if elected Tinubu must devise quick solutions to fix these problems which he said have grossly affected Nigerians
Moving forward, Obaro added: “Our gaze must be ‘fix corruption, fix insecurity; fix insecurity, fix the economy; fix the economy, fix poverty, hunger and unemployment.”
