Former National Chairman of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and Anambra Central Senatorial candidate of Labour Party in 2023 poll, Senator Victor Umeh, speaks with David-Chyddy Eleke, about Peter Obi presidential movement is your observation of the support for Obi in Nigeria today?
This is a popular movement all over Nigeria. The Peter Obi movement is everywhere in Nigeria and here in Anambra State, his home state it is expected that the crowd of supporters will even be much, and you have always seen the mammoth crowd gathered at every Labour Party function since he joined the party, even at short notice.
Anambra will be the major state for Peter Obi in 2023. He is from here, and everybody in this state is OBIdient. Everybody, both traditional rulers, across political parties are all his followers, so we are happy. This is the momentum needed to start work. People are ready, and we will comb every corner in Anambra State, because we owe him the heaviest support in this presidential election.
And those of us who are in the party contesting election too, we are not new comers. We have our individual supporters and they are all over the place too, we have brought them into the movement. As you can see, all the groups (support groups) came together, for the purpose of delivering Labour Party in next year’s election and we are confident we will achieve it. Many politicians contesting election will win because of Peter Obi, he is loved, and many of our fellow contestants will win their election because they are in this party. I know what I’m talking about.
Beyond Anambra, what do you say about support for Obi in the larger Nigeria?
Well Peter Obi is the driving itself. He is not the one doing it any longer, Nigerians have taken it over. If you are in touch with events everywhere in the country, you will see that Peter Obi is in hot demand in the country. Nigerians need him. People he has never met before have been donating offices for him across the country. Because people know me and my closeness to Peter Obi, I receive all manner of calls from people who are serving even current governments across Nigeria, wanting to discuss with us over the aspiration of Mr Obi. Some want to join the movement because they have seen that only Obi can redeem this country.
Let me say this is the hope Nigeria has to redeem itself, otherwise this place will collapse. People have identified it and people want to lend a helping hand to ensure that Nigeria is salvaged in next year’s election. Peter Obi is the one already identified, who can do the job. Because he knows what the issues are and what the solution would be. Others are playing politics, but Obi is not playing politics, rather, he is offering himself for service to redeem Nigeria.
People say the Labour Party does not have structure?
I have never believed that we do not have structure. I have always said it is just the figment of imagination of people who think that the only way they can feel they are in charge is to claim that he has false structure. In this coming election, the electorates, the voters are the structure, and even if you have everybody around you in your team, those people will vote against you in the election.
The issues confronting Nigeria today are the ones that Nigerians will not mind who is their relation in casting their votes, or who is their boss. They are going to vote for their recovery. The country is down, so the voters are the most important people in an election process, not the party. The voters are the most important people. And as you can see, Labour party has the most important people, they have the voters in Nigeria and you can see that the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has just set up a committee across the 36 states of Nigeria to mobilize the workers and electorates for Labour Party in the forthcoming election. Which political party has that kind of structure? None.
To make it even stronger, the voters are on their own driving this movement. It is not the party driving it, it is the people driving it themselves. Everyday you wake up and see people doing one thing or the other out of his or her own imagination. We have never seen that before in Nigeria. This is a popular political movement in Nigeria today.
What is your opinion on vote buying, do you think the people will sell their votes?
They (other political parties) say they are warming up to buy votes, but you see this election, people will collect your money and still vote you out. Nobody wants to continue in hardship. If you collect money and vote in somebody who will impoverish you, how is that of benefit to you? That is the message. You can not collect money and vote, and use the money to buy hardship for yourself. That is the message, when we will start the campaign, and I know that Nigeria will be much more mobilized than what you are seeing now.
The issues facing Nigeria today are the bedrock of the decision we make, not where you come from. This poverty is now ravaging the whole country. Everybody is getting ready, because the country is collapsing, and it’s a rescue mission and nobody is thinking in the line of where one come from. Those who wanted to forment ethnic and religious bias, you can see how they have been brushed aside. Nobody is talking about Obi being an Igbo man anymore, they are rather seeing him as somebody who carries the hope that Nigerians are yearning for. They see him as the instrument God will use to turn things around and we are already in the movement, so we are happy.
