Afenifere leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, has said in the spirit of fairness, it should be the turn of the Eouth-East geopolitical zone of the country to produce the next president “in line with the agreement reached by past Nigerian leaders in 1954 that each geopolitical zone should produce president, while they operate as a regional governments,” maintaining that this is why he is backing Mr. Peter Obi of Labour Party (LP).

According to him, the North, South-West and South-South had produced presidents for the country, while the S-East had not been given the opportunity to steer the ship of the country.

While speaking about the ambition of the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Chief Adebanjo recalled that before he (Tinubu) became governor of Lagos State, he had supported him on several occasions during his two-term administration.

“When he was the governor of Lagos State, I supported him; I did not hate him then; why will I have a cause to hate him now?

“Tinubu cannot confront me on this; but it is only the people that are benefiting from him that are speaking ills of me,” Adebanjo said.

Presidential candidate of the LP, Obi, restated his commitment to ensuring a secure and united Nigeria, just as he said he would create wealth for Nigerians, if elected president in 2023.

Adebanjo and Obi during the party’s campaign rally held at the Lekan Salami Stadium, Adamasingba, Ibadan, on Wednesday.

Obi noted that unity and security were needed to address the problems confronting the nation, including moving of the country from consumption to production.

The LP presidential candidate, who highlighted the challenges of the country, which ranged from unemployment, drug abuse and others, added that the challenges could be addressed by prioritising production, DailyTimesNGR gathered.

“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 five per cent. To deal with that crisis is production. We need to feed ourselves,” he said.

He noted that Nigeria was not short of ideas to bring solution to anything, but what was lacking was institutional framework and political will to implement the ideas.

Obi added that Nigeria could achieve whatever it wanted, with true implementation of its great ideas, while urging Nigerians to look at the antecedents of the 18 presidential candidates on the ballot before casting their votes in 2023.

He said voting should not be done by religion or by tribe, but by the capacity of the candidates to address prevailing challenges.

“Next year’s election should not be based on tribe. If it is by tribe, the North would have been safer and more developed. Yes, we must all respect the issue of religion; but even at that, we should not follow people blindly because of religion,” he said.

Obi also said that if elected, he would be in-charge of the country with the required energy and mental requirements, promising to address increasing debt profile of the country as well as engaging youths in addressing the problems of Nigeria.

“The job of Nigeria’s president requires physical and mental energy. I will make sure that Nigeria works. In our country, people don’t do what is expected. They do what is inspected. I will be there. I want to hire energetic men and women to start solving these problems.

“I want to pull young people with so much energy and talents. I want to invest in them, because they can change the world. That is what I want. I believe I can solve these problems,” he stressed.

Obi also pledged to fight corruption and make the education sector to work.

“I am not going give excuses. The work of a leader is not to give excuses. I am not going to complain. It is not the job of a leader. I am not going to complain of the past. You are hiring for the future and I am going to be for the future,” he said.